Alex's Sister
by BellaOnCoffeeCups
Summary: AU prompt from an anon on tumblr: Best Friend's Sister AU. Intended to be under 2500 words. Finished up at 25000, instead, so uploading as a story here.
1. Chapter 1

_"Best Friend's Sibling" Prompt from an anon on tumblr that got slightly (read: very) out of control. Comprised of nine parts, to be uploaded in three chunks. Parts 4-6 should be uploaded soon. Everything is written already (in four or five days pretty much, so it's not my best writing because it's kind of quantity over quality, but I like the story arc). A lot of this is based off of my own teenage years, particularly Gail's processing/denial of her feelings, so I'm quite proud of the story, even if the writing could be better._

_This is by far the shortest section, when I was writing this bit I thought I would still finish in under 10,000 words. That, as you will see soon, did not happen._

* * *

**Pt.1**

Gail didn't even know that Alex had a sister until she went to her house for dinner for the first time, a few months after they met. Alex later informed her that she'd never mentioned the sister, Holly, before because she was "super boring", and a "massive geek". Gail accepted it without much questioning, Holly _did _have her head buried in a book the whole time they were in the same room, and the only thing Gail could take away from the encounter was that Holly intimidated her somewhat, probably because she was fourteen, whilst Gail and Alex were only ten.

Alex's other sibling, Rob, was far more interesting. He was eight, and would play PlayStation with them, helping Gail in her games against Alex. Unlike the Stewart children, the Pecks weren't allowed games consoles in the house, meaning those first few times Gail went over to their house she needed all the help she could get. Rob was more than happy to oblige; excited just to be included in his big sister's game.

Gail probably saw Holly no more than eight times before her thirteenth birthday. She didn't get to go over to Alex's house much, the two didn't go to school with each other, and lived a twenty minute drive apart that it always took some effort to persuade their parents to make. They met each other during the softball practice their parents made them attend as children, drawn to each other due to their mutual dislike of all things sporty. They never actually quit the team though, relishing their only chance to see each other every week, but of course they usually just sat in the bleachers and avoided getting involved in any way. When Gail was actually allowed to go to her best friend's house, Holly always seemed to be out, or working in her room. They would only properly see each other if Holly joined them for dinner, and even that was rare; Holly usually ate with her parents once her Dad got home from work, while Gail, Alex and Rob would eat earlier in front of the television –a novelty to Gail, who was used to sharing an uncomfortable silent meal at the table with her parents; although Alex assured her they were only allowed to eat in front of the television when she was visiting. The only words Gail and the eldest Stewart Sibling would be a quick "Hello" if they passed one another in the hallway.

When they were thirteen, Gail and Alex's coach politely suggested to their parents that their talents probably lay elsewhere, and their surprisingly long membership of South York Junior Softball Club ended. Fortunately, Holly had received her full driver's license a couple of months earlier, and was willing to drive them between each other's houses more often than their parents would. Those encounters too, were largely devoid of interaction beyond polite greetings, however. Holly usually drove in silence, while her sister and Gail would chat away in the back. Gail never really noticed that Holly was listening to their gossiping though, smiling to herself at the girls' juvenile discussions about the things they considered important in life.

Then Holly went to college. But that turned out not to matter too much, because the girls had started High School. While Gail's was still a different High School to Alex's, the transition meant both girls were now allowed to take public transport to visit one another.

Gail disliked the people at her high school as much as she had the ones at her junior high. However, at Alex's fifteenth birthday party she met her best friend's school friends, and it turned out she actually didn't mind them. There were two boys; Tim and Kyle, and one girl; Lizzie. More and more, Gail would be with Alex and the other three would turn up, and the blonde teenager found, surprisingly, she didn't care too much. Soon she was almost fully integrated into their friendship group, joining them most weekends in whatever activity they were doing; usually lazing in one of their living rooms watching television. They enjoyed her dry humour, and she actually enjoyed the company, it was certainly preferable to being with her mother or any of the God awful girls she went to school with.

~x~

"Hey, Gail, have you met Alex's sister?" Kyle asked one day, as they lay in Lizzie's garden drinking lemonade in the summer between their freshman and sophomore years.

"Huh? Holly? Yeah." Gail replied absently.

"Why didn't you tell us Alex had a smoking hot nineteen year old sister?" Kyle demanded jokingly.

Gail sat up in surprise. "What?!"

"We were doing our maths homework in Alex's kitchen and she just walked in, just back from university, and we had no idea who she was. She was so hot!"

Gail looked at him in shock, and then across to Tim who was nodding his agreement.

Alex rolled her eyes. "Shut up you two, she's my sister. And she's not hot."

Gail glanced between them all in confusion, Tim and Kyle were looking at her like they genuinely wanted an explanation, Alex was grimacing at the sky in slight disgust, and Lizzie was just grinning to herself.

"Well, she is kind of hot, to be fair, Alex." Lizzie pointed out, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. She beat away Alex's hand as she tried to swat at her knee.

Gail considered it. Holly was, now she thought about it properly, fairly attractive. She had long wavy brown hair, where Alex's was dead straight, and the sort of body Gail could only hope she would one day develop, although that didn't seem very likely. And on the two or three times Gail had seen her laugh, she had one of those wide, enchanting smiles that felt so genuine it could comfort every insecurity you could ever have. Gail had only met three people who had those sort of smiles, one was her first grade teacher Mrs Eisen, the second was the male nurse who had looked after her in the hospital when she broke her leg when she was eight, and the third, was Holly. To be honest, Gail was always kind of intimidated by that smile, unused to feelings of genuine appreciation or positivity being directed towards her.

"But you don't actually fancy her." Lizzie continued, turning to the boys. "You just have a thing for her because she's older and smarter and completely unobtainable. If you actually got to know her the illusion would disappear. It's normal, that's why people always fancy their teachers, it's not because you actually have feelings for her." Lizzie was the smart one of them, and Gail sighed quietly in relief, her heart had been starting to beat uncomfortably fast thinking about her best friend's older sister.

"Wait, you think she's hot too?" Tim asked, and Gail didn't think she'd ever seen him look so excited.

"Well, yeah, she _is_. Stop trying to hit me, Alex!"

"That's so hot." Tim murmured.

Alex shot him a steely glare.

"It's not like that, it's not like I want to be with her, so _stop_ thinking about it like we are. I bet Gail feels the same, don't you?"

"Huh?" Gail glanced at Lizzie, she envied her friend's ability to talk about things without letting them bother her in the slightest; the discussion was getting her uncomfortably flustered. "Yeah, she's pretty, I guess. I mean, I've known her ages, I don't think I could see her that way." She lied. She wasn't quite sure why, Lizzie had just offered a perfectly rational explanation for her feelings without realising it, but she didn't feel like it was something she should be admitting. Lizzie was just way better at treating things like they weren't a big deal, Gail decided.

"That makes sense." Lizzie nodded, and the topic was forgotten for the rest of the day.

When she got home she did some googling, and it turned out Lizzie was right, teenagers got these crushes all the time, and it didn't mean anything. Even if they were the same sex, the websites told her, it meant nothing.

**Pt. 2**

Holly was mentioned many times that summer. Once, when her friend from university, Ellie, came to visit, the two sunbathed in the Stewart's garden together in their bikinis, unaware of four pairs of eyes observing them from Alex's bedroom window, while the Stewart they were actually friends with threw a tantrum on her bed. But largely the discussion of Holly had nothing to do with the older Stewart being around. Instead it occurred because Tim and Kyle greatly enjoyed how much they could provoke Alex by discussing her older sister, while Lizzie would roll her eyes and Gail would join in their teasing under the auspices of just enjoying winding her best friend up, as much because she was amused as because she was apparently just as attracted to the perfectly endowed (something Gail was increasingly aware of since bikini-gate) brunette.

When Holly went back to college, she slowly faded from their topics of conversation again. The boys didn't see her when she returned at Christmas, so didn't get a chance to resume their lusting, but Gail did. She was at the Stewart's house, waiting for Alex to return from her quick excursion to the store to get cheese puffs so they could resume talking about the middle Stewart's new boyfriend, Daniel. She took a trip to the bathroom, and discovered something she wasn't expecting for another two days. She looked in the bathroom cupboard, and in the drawer she knew Alex usually kept her sanitary products, but found nothing. Mr and Mrs Stewart were at work, the only people in were Rob, Holly, and Holly's friend Ellie, who was visiting again. Gail had thus far avoided seeing Holly at all this summer, and had been hoping to keep things that way.

Gail seriously considered waiting for Alex to return, but she had only just left, she could be another half an hour. Eventually she worked up the courage to knock on Holly's door. Gail heard someone swearing, then some footsteps and giggling, before the door opened. Holly smiled at her brightly, but Gail couldn't help notice she looked slightly less put together than usual. "Hey, Gail." Gail felt brown eyes running up and down the length of her body. "You look so much older than when I last saw you, you look great!"

"Hi." Gail murmured. The compliment would have on any other occasion caused her to near pass out in joy, even though she knew she looked good, the last remnants of her puppy fat were disappearing, she'd started bleaching her hair, hiding the reddish mousy brown she so despised, and she had grown boobs finally, but she was so nervous it barely registered. "Can I uh, ask you something?"

"Sure, what's up?"

Gail looked nervously at the open door behind the brunette, and Holly followed her gaze. She reached behind her to close the door. "Is everything ok?"

"Yeah, I uh… wheredoyoukeepyourtampons?" She spoke hurriedly.

"I'm sorry?" Holly's eyes narrowed as she tried to work out what had been said, her smile not faltering for a moment.

Gail glanced around to check Rob hadn't snuck out of his room and was listening to them. "Do you have a, uh, tampon?" She said, quietly. "Please."

Holly's eyes lit up. "Oh right, yes, of course. You almost scared me there, I thought something had happened to Alex. Doesn't she have any?"

"Buying cheesepuffs." Gail brushed off, desperate for this conversation to be over as soon as possible, she could feel how red she was turning. "Can you get me…?"

"I have some in here, come in." Holly opened the door to her room again, and Gail followed her in, eying suspiciously the black haired girl relaxing on her bed, reading a magazine. "How big?" She asked as she rooted through her drawers.

"Um, average? I mean medium, normal. Whatever, anything." Gail spluttered. This was going disastrously.

Holly just smiled and handed her the small packet, and Gail was sure she had deliberately angled the manoeuvre so Ellie couldn't see what item had just exchanged hands, even though it must have been obvious what it was from the context. But Gail appreciated that Holly was trying not to increase her discomfort. The blonde offered a quick smile and exited the room as quickly as possible.

When Holly and Ellie came down to the kitchen for dinner later, Holly tried to smile at her, but Gail was still mortified. It was then, she decided, that she would have to avoid all interaction with Holly Stewart until her hormones settled down to normal levels, which biology and teen movies told her should happen in two to three years.

~x~

The summer before their junior year, Alex and Daniel were getting serious. Unfortunately, this led to a conversation Gail really didn't want to be having. Having emotionally closed off parents really did not prepare her for conversations about sex, even with her closest friends.

"You really think you're ready?" Gail asked, for the fourth time.

"Yeah, he's coming over tonight, Holly's going to Rob's hockey game, and Mom and Dad are going for dinner. We'll have at least three hours, probably four. There's just one problem."

"What?"

"I don't have any condoms."

Gail looked at her blankly. "Well nor do I."

"Yeah, but I was wondering, if I gave you the money, would you…?"

"No." Gail cut her off.

"Please."

"No, I'm not buying johns for you."

"Johns? You're so weird, Gail."

"Why can't you get them?"

"Because… what if someone sees me?" Alex floundered.

"What if someone sees me? My parents would murder me."

"Fine. Shit. Do you think we need to use one?"

Gail looked at her best friend incredulously.

"Ok, stupid question. Fuck." Alex fell back on her bed, groaning.

"Why don't you ask Holly? She's twenty, she's got to have some?" Gail asked.

"She's out. She's picking Rob up from his friend's house later, she won't be coming home."

"Oh." While this did not help her friend out one bit, Gail couldn't help be glad the elder Stewart wasn't going to be coming home whilst she was still there.

"Let's go look through her drawers."

"What?"

"Well, like you said, she's got to have some, I'm sure she won't notice if one goes missing." Alex jumped out of her bed before Gail could stop her, and strode into her elder sister's bedroom.

She stopped just inside the doorway. "Where do you think she keeps them?"

"Well probably with her tampons, in there." Gail mused, pointing at one of the drawers. Alex looked at her, confused.

Gail sighed. "She gave me one once, I'll look; watch the door in case your parents come upstairs."

Alex went to the doorway as Gail opened the door. There were the tampons, and next to them, some lube. However, no condoms. Gail frowned, they must be in this drawer too, surely.

She started rifling through the neatly folded clothes that filled the rest of the drawer, and was barely able to stifle her surprise at what she discovered next. Underneath a sweatshirt Gail had seen a few times, was a purple phallus. It wasn't hugely realistic – or what Gail imagined to be realistic, given her only relatively limited experience with penises – but that is definitely what it was. She was strangely impressed. She didn't think of Holly as the dildo type. But then dangerous images started to enter her mind. Images of Holly lying on the bed just a meter behind where Gail was currently stood, open legged, toy in hand…

She shook the image off, and started to carry on searching, but quickly stopped again when she noticed that the toy was attached to some black straps. Straps of a harness. Gail's breathing became heavier as she resumed her searching. It could mean anything, she told herself. Then her fingers brushed on something that felt like cardboard, and she grabbed it, hoping it was the prized box of condoms and she could get out of here. But it wasn't. It was a slightly tatty magazine. With an enormous pair of boobs on the front. Along with about ten other, less ridiculously proportioned, pairs of boobs. The boobs had all been doodled on, and written under them was a message. "Hols, I know this is completely not your kind of thing, but I think you'll be pleasantly surprised by pages twelve through seventeen. ;) ENJOY! –S."

Gail definitely did not want to know what was on pages twelve through seventeen, so she put it back where she found it and carried on searching. She was becoming increasingly uncomfortable with this gross invasion of privacy, and was about to give up when she uncovered a book. 'The Ultimate Guide to Lesbian Sex.' She felt an immediate pang of guilt and returned it to the drawer hastily, starting to rearrange everything to the position it had been when she opened it, cursing herself for ever agreeing to this endeavour.

"Fuck." Alex said behind her, and Gail spun around, terrified her best friend had seen what she had discovered. But Alex was looking out the window. "Holly's home."

Gail looked at the drawer, it definitely did not look anything like it had ten minutes ago. "Shit, you said she wasn't coming back."

"She wasn't meant to, did you find any condoms?"

"No, I don't think she has any." Gail said, trying desperately to make everything look more orderly.

"Crap, ok, come on, let's get out of here, she's about to get into the house."

Gail took a last guilty look at the open drawer, before pushing it shut and letting Alex pull her out of the room.

~x~

Two hours later, as they sat playing on her games console, Alex spoke up.

"I should go ask her."

"Huh?"

"I should ask her if she has any condoms."

Gail looked across at her friend. "I really don't think she has any."

"Still, no harm in asking. Come with?"

Gail froze. "I don't think…"

Alex stood up and kicked her thigh lightly. "Come on, I know you've always been super embarrassed around her, but it's silly, she's such a dweeb; she's nothing to be intimidated by."

Gail sighed, knowing she wasn't getting out of this. She stood back, leaning against the wall as Alex knocked on her sister's door. Holly opened it, confused.

"Hi…?" Holly never had that huge smile she always gave Gail when she addressed her younger sister.

"Hi. Can we, uh, ask you something?"

Gail scowled at her best friend and coughed pointedly.

"Fine, can _I _ask you something." Alex corrected.

"Sure?" Holly looked suspicious.

"Do you promise not to tell Mom and Dad?"

Holly's eyes narrowed. "I suppose, as long as you're not in any danger…"

"What? No!" Alex said hurriedly, then glanced up and down the hallway. "Do you, uh, have any condoms?"

Whatever Holly was expecting, that clearly wasn't it. "No… why?"

"Are you sure? It's just me and Daniel…"

Holly cut her off. "Ew, no, don't finish that sentence." She appraised her sister. "Are you sure you're ready?"

Alex sighed exasperatedly. "We've been together for ages, Holly. And we're both sixteen. And we've done everything else…"

"No, stop, stop talking." Holly pondered her younger sister for a moment. "Why don't you go and buy them?"

"Because... what if someone sees and tells mom?"

Holly rolled her eyes, and glanced at her watch. "Give me a twenty."

"What?"

"Twenty, and I'll go get some."

"They cost twenty dollars?"

"No, but I'm taking commission." Gail smiled at that, and Holly seemed to notice because she glanced over and flashed a quick but large smile at her. Gail, naturally, instantly flushed bright red.

"Fine, I'm going to get my purse." Alex said, turning to head to her room. Holly made to do the same, but stopped herself at the last moment.

"Hey Alex, wait." Holly called, and Alex turned around, clearly hoping that Holly was about to retract her monetary demands.

"You didn't go looking for some in my room already did you?" Gail's heart immediately sank. She had been silently convincing herself for the past two hours that she had done a good enough job of restoring order to what had been, until she pillaged it, a very neat and well organised drawer. But in her heart she knew she had been kidding herself, and Holly was bound to realise someone had been in there.

"What?" Thank God Alex was a relatively accomplished liar.

Holly searched her sister's eyes. "You didn't try and… you know, never mind, I'm just going to grab a jacket." Holly gave in. She didn't look quite like she believed Alex wholeheartedly, but Gail suspected that Holly knew if Alex had found what she had, that she wouldn't have been able to hide it.

Holly left for the shop, and Gail went home in her absence, not keen to face her again when she returned. In her bed that night she finally had a chance to stop and process. Holly Stewart was almost certainly a lesbian. The girl she had a crush, a _harmless, superficial crush, she reminded herself, _on, was a lesbian. Fuck.

**Pt. 3**

Gail never told Alex what she found in her sister's drawers. But she did nearly punch her the next day when Alex casually informed her that their quest for prophylactics had been entirely pointless because Daniel had turned up to her house with a box of condoms twice the size of the one Holly had bought her.

Holly was back at University soon, and the next year was remarkably similar to the one previous. The boys' jokes about Holly continued, then dwindled in exactly the same manner as they had before. The only difference was that now it wasn't just Alex who had a boyfriend, but Gail too, and Kyle had a girlfriend. Although, come October, Alex didn't actually have a boyfriend anymore anyway. After successfully avoiding Holly all Christmas, Alex and Gail recreated their search for condoms, but this time for Gail's benefit, and with a lot more success, largely due to Alex no longer being terrified of purchasing them.

Gail understood now, the obsession with sex. Her boyfriend, Andrew's fingers and tongue didn't possess any overwhelming talents, but when they got into a rhythm, when he started to understand the pace and force Gail liked, she enjoyed it. She enjoyed it multiple times over. When she and Andrew eventually broke up, just before the summer, she was almost sadder about the fact sex was stopping than that they were breaking up.

She considered phoning up Holly and asking where she bought the purple dildo so she could go and buy something for herself, probably not a dildo, maybe something that vibrated, she liked the idea of that – she was absolutely not ordering something online with her mother's tendency to do random spot checks on incoming packages. But that consideration disappeared almost immediately, when she remembered on exactly how many levels that would be weird. Least of all it would involve admitting that she even knew about the existence of the purple dildo in the first place.

She had barely thought about Holly this year, somehow. There was one awkward moment during sex when she had closed her eyes and images of Holly's face had flashed across her imagination, but she shut that down pretty quickly.

In fact, when Holly came back in the summer, Gail managed to behave like a normal human being in front of her. Something she put down to the fact she was four months off turning eighteen now, and her hormones must be somewhere near calming down.

~x~

They were sat around the Stewart's kitchen table early one evening; she, Alex, Lizzie, Tim, Kyle, and Kyle's irritating girlfriend Lucy, who had somehow infiltrated their friendship group at some point in the past six months. Kyle was teaching them all to play poker, in theory. But in actuality, Gail and Kyle were watching the garden where Holly was practising yoga in only a sports bra and shorts, Lucy and Alex were poring over a takeout menu, and Tim and Lizzie were not-so-surreptitiously feeling each other up under the table. That had been a recent development in the past couple of months. They had yet to tell the others, even though it was painfully obvious, but the rest of them; Kyle, Alex and Gail, along with, to Gail's disgust, Lucy, had agreed to let them tell them in their own time. When stuff like this happened Gail desperately wanted to yell at them that everyone knew, though.

Gail's trance was broken when Holly stopped stretching to answer her phone. She and Kyle slumped back into their seats, searching for something to distract them. Yes, her hormones may be settling down, and she may be able to form whole sentences in front of her crush now, but that didn't mean she had to stop admiring her beauty. Gail knew from the way her peers talked about the body of Beyoncé that there was nothing necessarily gay about admiring another woman's physique. And in her opinion, Holly had a far better body than Beyoncé, so she really was completely justified in her leering.

She didn't have to be distracted for long though, because just then Holly entered the kitchen, a rare scowl on her face. Up close, Gail didn't know whether she'd rather be looking at her ample breasts, her ridiculously toned chest, or her long, shapely legs. She didn't have to decide though, because Holly, unexpectedly, started speaking to them, forcing Gail's gaze to be drawn to her face. Not that _that_ was much of a hardship.

"Do any of you guys play softball?" She asked, and they looked at each other suspiciously. Gail leant back in her seat, satisfied that she was going to be obliged to do nothing here. She saw Alex do the same.

"Why?" Tim asked.

"I have a game this weekend with some of my friends from high school, it's just a casual league, but one of my team dropped out, and if we don't get a replacement we'll have to forfeit the game."

The whole group sighed in relief. "We have a field trip this weekend." Kyle explained. "Sorry."

"Oh, all of you?"

"Yeah." Alex replied. "Oh, except Gail, obviously, she's not at our school."

Holly looked over at the blonde, a definite wary look on her face. Holly had watched a couple of her games when she and Alex were in their team, Gail was not surprised that she was taking her time deciding if she actually wanted her on her team.

"I don't suppose you're any better than you were when you were twelve?" The brunette asked, hopefully.

"Not unless you can improve without actually playing." Gail retorted. "Don't worry, I'm really not interested."

"You may be the only person we know who's available." Holly said. "Look, I'll try phoning around to find someone, but if I can't get someone, will you think about it? Please." Holly gave her a pleading smile.

Gail narrowed her eyes. "Maybe. I'm not promising anything. I don't usually hang out with nerds at the weekend."

Holly gave her that smile. The big, complete one that made her feel uncomfortable since she was ten years old. Her heart flipped.

Holly then rested her chin on the top of her sister's head. "Are you getting Thai?" She asked, glancing down at the takeout menu.

Alex frowned. "Yes."

"Mm, could you order me a Green Curry please? Shrimp."

Alex twisted her head to direct her scowl directly at Holly.

"Don't worry, I won't insist on sitting here and eating it with you." Holly rolled her eyes. "I wouldn't want to ruin your mojo."

Alex's scowl was not abated. "Fine." She eventually conceded.

"Thank you, Lexie." Holly smiled, leaning down to kiss her sister's cheek before bouncing out of the room.

Alex glared around at them all, daring any of them to use her nickname. Only Gail gave in.

"Hurry up then Lexie, order our dinner!" She grinned, and received a smack to the back of the head for her audacity.

~x~

Holly sauntered back into the kitchen half an hour later, a glum look on her face. She fell into the seat next to Gail. She and Lucy had quickly exited the poker game they had eventually started, and unlike Lucy, Gail did not have a boyfriend to keep touching up to give her something to do. She was almost grateful for the sudden company.

"I don't suppose you've decided you _do_ want to play softball on Saturday?"

Gail groaned. "No luck?"

"None at all. Sorry." Holly sighed.

"I'm really, really bad."

"I know." Holly conceded. "You'd just need to turn up and stand around, try and hit a ball a few times. I'm not asking you to be good, just make up the numbers. Please?"

Gail considered it. "You can't hate me when I'm useless."

Holly smiled. "I won't, I promise. No expectations, whatsoever. The rest of my team is pretty good, we should be ok on our own, we just need you so we don't have to forfeit."

Gail considered the brunette. That smile, with the pleading look in her eyes meant she never stood a chance. "Fine."

"Oh my, thank you!" Holly smiled widely. For a moment, Gail thought she was going to hug her, but that moment, if it even existed, passed quickly.

And then the door rang. Holly went to get it, and came back into the kitchen carrying their dinner. There seemed to a general consensus that food was a priority over poker, much to Gail's relief. She was surprised when, after everyone had plated up their food, Holly returned to the seat next to her. Alex shot her sister a not so subtle glare, but Holly ignored it.

"So can you remember the rules?" Holly asked.

"Sure, hit the ball when you're batting, catch it when you're fielding." Gail shrugged.

Holly laughed, and reached for the paper bag the food had arrived in, flattening it and pulling a pen from her pocket, before she drew out a playing field diagram.

"I know what a playing field looks like, Holly."

"Ok, where's the foul territory?"

Gail tried to remember anything she had ever been taught by her coach. Holly laughed again and started explaining, in more depth than she had any chance of remembering, the exact rules of softball.

Almost an hour later, the diagram had been lost in a heap of trash, and the others had returned to their game. Gail, meanwhile, was well aware that she was still engaging in by far the longest, and least awkward, interaction she'd ever had with her best friend's elder sister, and she knew she definitely did not want it to end any time soon. She cursed internally when Holly's phone rang, interrupting her explanation of the thesis she was planning on writing in the forthcoming academic year. Holly looked at it, and smiled widely.

"Sorry, I need to take this. But I'll see you on Saturday. Thank you so much, again, for this." Holly beamed, and answered the phone. "Hey, El, sorry, give me thirty seconds and I'm all yours. Thanks."

She took the phone away from her ear. "Do you want me to pick you up early? We can go practice before."

"What time is early?" Gail asked warily.

"Well, the game starts at two so… twelve thirty?"

Gail considered the offer. "Ok, sure. You remember where I live?"

"I've driven to your house about fifty times; yes I remember."

Gail nodded. "Ok, see you Saturday."

"See you Saturday." Holly repeated back at her, smiling, and put the phone back to her ear. "Hey, sorry, I was just with my sister's friends; I'm heading back to my room now."

Gail watched Holly exit the room, and returned her attention back to the table, and noticed Lizzie, too, was now out of the game, and was watching her curiously.

"What?" Gail asked, defensively.

"Nothing."

Lizzie's attempt at a reassuring smile reminded Gail of what she had said three years ago, that the boys' crush on Holly would fade if they got to know her. She scowled. That had been the logic she had lived off since that day. But she had just had a conversation with Holly; a long, comfortable conversation, and she still wanted to check out her ass as she left the room, and felt a slight loss inside at her absence. Fuck harmless crushes. That was definitely not what this was. Not that she knew what it was, but it certainly was not what she had been pretending it was for the past two years.

~x~

Twelve thirty on Saturday, Gail was sat nervously in her front room, wearing the running shorts her mother had hopefully bought for her two years previously, and the loosest tank top she owned. It was 29 degrees outside, and she had already applied so much sun screen that her skin was saturated and some of it refused to rub in.

Holly arrived two minutes late, and on the drive to the field, they discussed only the heat.

"It's good tanning weather, at least." Holly commented.

Gail looked across at her, eyebrows raised.

"Yeah, maybe you were the wrong person to make that argument to."

"Maybe." Gail groaned. "I swear, Holly, if I end up burnt looking like a lobster tomorrow, you will owe me so badly."

"I'll make sure you're fielding in the shade."

"I could field in the bleachers; they have shade."

Holly laughed. "Hey, you signed up, you're in this now."

Gail groaned again. "Lord knows why."

Holly smiled and they continued the drive in silence.

At the field Holly tried pitching to her, hoping she may have somehow improved since she was a child, to no avail. In fact, almost to her death, when Gail hurled the bat in her direction on her first try. When Holly had stopped laughing, and Gail had stopped apologising, they reset, and the next five attempts were only marginally more successful, in that Gail kept hold of her bat, but still had not hit a ball.

"It's your posture." Holly offered.

"You sound like my mother."

"No, I mean, you need put your legs further apart." Holly demonstrated the position Gail should be taking, and the blonde tried to emulate it, without much success.

"Further apart." Holly said, standing behind her and kicking the inside of her foot to move her legs apart. Gail obliged.

"Ok, stick your butt out more, get lower." Holly moved around in front of her to observe.

"I thought you were going to stand behind me and guide me into position, like in the movies." Gail pouted.

"Yeah I don't really do rom-coms." Holly laughed.

"Me neither." Gail conceded.

"Ok, you look better now. Three more balls, and then we'll practice catching."

"I'm not five, you know, Holly."

"I know!" Holly smirked.

The game was not a complete disaster. Their team won, apparently. Not that Gail really understood why. She had been focussing on Holly's three instructions. "Try not to get out, but don't worry if you do because we need three people out to end the innings, and you can only be one of them", "If you manage to hit the ball, run." and "if you catch the ball, throw it to whoever's shouting at you loudest."

As it turned out, she did manage to hit the ball once, although it did go straight into the hands of an outfielder. She was just proud she hit it though, and she could have sworn it looked like Holly was too. But she did catch someone out. Holly had definitely looked proud at that one.

"That wasn't too bad, huh?" Holly grinned and bumped Gail's shoulder when the game was over.

"Well I don't think the Jets will be calling me up anytime soon."

"You mean the Mets, the Jets are football." Holly corrected. Gail shrugged.

"Hey, we're going to John's house for a barbeque, you should come."

"You want me to crash your barbeque?"

"It's not crashing, you're part of the team."

Gail checked the time on her phone. "I need to be home by ten thirty, but I can come for a while."

"Great! He lives in Lawrence Park too, so it'll be dead easy for you to get back to your house."

At the barbeque, everyone was sat around the table in John's garden, chatting and drinking beer. Gail felt out of place for the first time that day. They had been part of a team when they were playing softball, but now they were a group of friends who had gone through high school together. A group of twenty one year old friends. Everyone except Gail, that is. She cursed herself for not thinking through her agreeing to come

Holly fell into the seat next to her, holding out a beer for the blonde.

"You realise you're committing a felony, right?" Gail asked, as she took the bottle.

"I wasn't going to invite you to hang out with a load of twenty one year olds and not provide you with any alcohol; that would be kind of cruel." Holly explained. "Besides, giving you a beer is the least I can do to thank you for today."

"It's ok, I had a good time."

"You did?

Gail nodded.

"I'm glad. And you were actually kind of good. Maybe not so much at the batting, but you got someone out, that's something to be proud of." Holly smiled.

"It was a fluke." Gail dismissed.

"No, it was good." Holly said firmly.

Gail looked the brunette in the eyes, trying to gauge what she wanted, but she could see nothing. And the staring was apparently making Holly uncomfortable.

"Lex said you broke up with your boyfriend." Holly restarted their conversation.

"Yeah, well, we broke up with each other, I guess."

"I'm sorry." Holly offered.

Gail shrugged. "It's fine, it didn't bother me that much. I do kind of miss the sex though."

Holly almost spat out her beer, but recovered herself. "I'm sorry. I just find it so weird when people my sister's age talk about sex. That day you two came to me for condoms was a bit of a shock to the system, to be honest."

A part of Gail desperately wanted to tell Holly what she had discovered that day. To tell her she didn't care, that if Holly wanted to talk to someone she could talk to her. But even Gail, with her lacking of normal social boundaries, knew that would be obtrusive.

"So are you seeing someone?" She tried, on the slightest hope Holly may come out of her own accord right there and then.

"Did Lex ask you to ask me that?"

"No, why?"

Holly shook her head. "She's convinced I have a boyfriend in Montreal, she won't stop bugging me about it."

"What, like an exotic Quebecois lover?" Gail teased.

"Something like that." Holly smiled. "I'll answer your question only if you promise not to tell her."

"Cross my heart."

"Yes, I am seeing someone. But I'm not telling you any more than that. In case you lied and you do tell Lex; I don't need her having more ammo than knowing I'm in a relationship."

Gail raised her eyebrows. "I wouldn't tell. But I understand your point." Gail took a swig of her beer.

"Thanks." Holly smiled. "Do _you_ like anyone? If you fancy any of my friends I'll put in a good word for you."

Gail didn't need to look around the table to be able to answer that one. "I'm good, but thanks."


	2. Chapter 2

**Pt. 4**

Gail didn't see much more of Holly after the softball game that summer. Alex said she was working on her thesis prep, and applications for something, although she wouldn't divulge what exactly the applications were for.

Gail would have been lying if she said she wasn't disappointed at the brunette's absence from her life. Their time together that day had shown her just how easily the two of them got along. They had only really had one day's worth of interaction, but it felt like they'd been friends for years. She was just as easy to talk to as Alex was, but where Alex shared her slightly impetuous traits, Holly played off them in her own, calm, collected way. And Holly was incredibly interesting. She was majoring in Biology with a minor in Chemistry, but she wasn't just book smart, she was worldly and knew so many random things it kind of blew Gail's mind. She had hoped they would at least become friends after their day together, but apparently not.

She had changed from being terrified of running into her every time she was at Alex's house, to desperately hoping that they would end up sat in the kitchen together, or bump into each other in the hallway.

She had worked out why she still liked Holly, even though she had got to know her, going against Lizzie's hypothesis. It was because they had the potential to be such good friends, because they connected and could have a good time.

Sure, she was still attracted to her, of course she was; Holly was ridiculously attractive. As in, by far the most attractive person she'd ever met, level attractive. There couldn't be many people who would be able to hang around her for any length of time without gawping at her body or getting an overwhelming urge to kiss her. It was probably the same for people who met Leonardo DiCaprio in person. Add her attractiveness to the fact she was still older and unobtainable, factors Lizzie had said contributed to baseless crushes; of course Gail was attracted to her.

She had _missed _her because she wanted to be friends with her. She was _attracted_ to her because she was a beautiful person; certainly not because she had feelings for her. Her _feelings_ were strong, but they were platonic. She'd been reading up on girl crushes, and they were perfectly normal.

~x~

One Saturday in mid-November of her final year of high school, Gail was watching television alone in her living room. Her parents were at a conference all day, and had suggested they may not bother coming home but get a hotel room when it was over. Gail was waiting their call so she could let her friends know if they were free to crash at hers that night.

She had just glanced at the clock -3.05pm- when there was a knocking at her front door. Frowning, she pulled herself off the couch and to the door. What she found there threw her completely.

Holly was standing on her doorstep, eyes red raw, skin blotchy. Her hair was slightly damp, her coat was slipping off her shoulders and her bag dumped unceremoniously on the ground.

"Holly, what…?"

"Do you know where my family are?" Holly asked weakly.

"At one of Rob's hockey games, what are you doing in Toronto?"

Holly turned her face slightly and wiped the back of her hand across it. "Can I come in, it's raining?"

Gail stood back and let the brunette pass her into the house. She helped in the removal of her coat and hung it up on their rack. Then they stood, facing each other in her parent's entrance hall.

"Holly, what's wrong?"

The brunette let out a sob and hurled herself at the younger woman, burying her face in the crook of her neck as she wept.

Gail wrapped her arms around the brunette, breathing in the smell of rainwater from her hair, mixed with a smell she was used to from the Stewarts' house that she could now identify as coming from her shampoo.

She felt Holly's arms wrap around her neck, and tightened her own hold against the older girl's back, content to stand there and hold her until Holly felt comfortable to part again. Or until Gail's parents returned and questioned why there was a weeping twenty two year old clinging onto their daughter for dear life. Whichever happened first. At that point it was looking likely it may be the second scenario.

They did part eventually, as Holly took a long sniff and pulled her face back. "I'm sorry," She croaked. "I was crying on a bus for seven hours with no-one to hold on to and then…" She paused to push back a sob, sniffing again. "And then my mom wasn't even home." She looked like she was about to burst into tears again at any moment.

Gail brought up her hand to sweep some damp hair out of the other woman's face, and then continued to run her hand through to the end of her locks. "Oh, Holly."

Holly wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. "I'm such a mess."

"What happened?" Gail asked carefully.

"I… Can I have some water, please?"

"Sure." Gail smiled gently, leading her through to the kitchen, passing her the box of tissues they passed on the way through. Holly sat at the table, and Gail joined her moments later, sitting around the corner from her so they could face each other, placing two glasses of water between them. Holly blew her nose loudly into a tissue.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Gail asked.

Holly shook her head, then nodded slightly, then shrugged, before slumping her shoulders dejectedly.

"You might need to explain that gesture to me." Gail smiled.

"My… that person I said I was seeing, they're cheating on me." Holly said quietly, her eyes filling with tears again.

"Oh, I'm so sorry." Gail offered, feeling somewhat useless. This was not her realm of expertise. She reached across to take one of Holly's hands and stroked it with her thumb. "I really am, that's horrible. The worst. Sh… They're an idiot, Holly, they really are."

"I couldn't stay in Montreal, I just wanted to come home." A tear escaped down her cheek, and Gail caught it with her thumb, resting her hand against Holly's cheek.

"I'm sorry your parents weren't home, that's shitty; really, really shitty."

"I was in such a rush I forgot my keys." Holly whispered.

"I have a spare if you want me to drop you over there." Gail offered.

But Holly shook her head. "I don't think I want to go there anymore. I don't know what I'd tell them."

"Tell them the truth."

"They don't even know I was seeing someone."

"They wouldn't care. They'd just want to help you."

Holly shook her head. "I don't know." Another tear rolled down her cheek, but this time she caught it herself with a tissue. "I don't know anything. I don't know what to do." Holly looked up from the table for the first time, looking Gail straight in the eye, silently begging her for guidance.

"Well I was watching a M*A*S*H marathon when you arrived, you could do that too. If you want." Gail suggested. "Just until you decide what else to do."

Holly nodded weakly, letting Gail pull her to her feet, and into her living room.

She let Holly sit on their largest couch, expecting her to want to lie across the length of it, but she felt a tug on her sleeve, and the other girl pulled her down to sit next to her. Gail felt Holly lean into her side as she turned on the television, and instinctively wrapped her other arm around her body.

"Thank you, Gail." Holly murmured, as the television flickered into life mid-episode.

"It's nothing." Gail twisted and kissed the top of Holly's head in response.

They were sat that way for only ten minutes before Holly was softly snoring on her shoulder. When Gail received a text from her mother at 6.18pm, informing her that she and her father were going to be staying at the hotel overnight. Gail gently moved out from underneath the other woman, guiding her down to lie on the couch, before retrieving a blanket to drape over her. Then she settled into the armchair to finish her marathon, one eye maintaining watch over the sleeping brunette.

~x~

Gail woke from the doze she had accidentally fallen into when she heard Holly rise from the couch.

"Where are you going?" Gail croaked, as Holly shuffled past her.

"Contact lenses."

Gail looked at her, she looked slightly more together than she had been when she arrived. "Do you want some tea?"

Holly considered the question before nodding slowly. "Thank you."

"No problem," Gail smiled.

When she came back with two mugs of tea, Holly had returned to the couch, she was sat with her arms pulling her knees to her chest. She smiled weakly when Gail offered her a mug, and took it in one of her hands.

"Do you mind if I sit here, or…?" Gail asked nervously, indicating to the space next to Holly on the couch.

"Please." Holly said quietly.

Gail glanced at the clock, it was only nine o'clock, but it somehow felt much later.

"Where are your family?"

"Out, my parents are at a hotel downtown tonight, and my brother lives on Queen West."

"I didn't know you have a brother."

"Yeah, Steve. He's in the Toronto PD, but he's quite a bit older than me."

"How much?"

"Eight and a half years."

Holly took a sip of tea. "And I always thought four years was a big age gap. Lex and I seem like virtually twins in comparison to that."

Gail smiled softly. "Eight and a half years is enough to know you were definitely an accidental baby."

"A happy accident though."

Gail didn't bother to tell Holly she was probably wrong there, she didn't feel like that would help lighten the mood.

"Should we talk about what happened?" Gail asked, slowly.

"I don't… I don't know." Holly's shoulders slumped.

"Ok. Well, if you want to talk, - and you should talk to _someone_ \- I swear, on everything I own, that I won't tell Alex anything you tell me if you don't want me to. I would never, ever do that."

"I know, I trust you, I think. It's just, it's complicated. But it's so much more complicated than it should be."

"I'm good at complicated." Gail smiled as gently as she could manage.

Holly looked at her, deep into her eyes. To Gail it felt like her soul was being opening and carefully examined. "You won't tell Alex?"

"No, I won't even tell her you were here if you don't want me to." Gail offered, earnestly.

Holly took a long breath. "The person who I was seeing. Who cheated on me. It was Ellie."

Gail's heart broke as she watched Holly brace herself for some sort of negative reaction or outburst to her revelation.

"I never liked her much." Gail commented. She had suspected, strongly, many times since Holly had confirmed to her that she was in a relationship, that Ellie was the other party.

"You… you don't care that she's a girl?"

"Of course not." Gail shook her head gently, a bewildered look on her face.

Holly looked at her intently. "Did you already know? Do my family already know?"

"Yes." Gail said, then quickly corrected herself as she watched panic emerge on her best friend's sister's face. "Yes, I knew; No, your family don't. Not as far as I know, anyway."

"Not even Alex?"

"Definitely not Alex. She still thinks you have a secret boyfriend."

"How did you know?"

"I didn't _know, _know. Not for sure. I just had a very strong suspicion." Gail admitted.

Holly looked thoughtful for a few moments. "Did _you_ find something in my drawers?"

Gail fell silent at that, before realising she really couldn't clear her conscience unless she confessed. "Yes. I'm so sorry. I feel so terrible that I did it, and I swear, I didn't tell a soul."

"I knew Lex was lying when she said she hadn't looked in my room!" Holly growled.

"I promise you she didn't see a thing, I was the only one who saw. It was stupid, and I know it was completely juvenile, but we really weren't _trying_ to violate your privacy or anything like that, I promise. She just really wanted to have sex, and I really wanted her to shut up about how much she wanted it. I thought you were this really cool, intimidating twenty year old who didn't care about talking about tampons with your younger sister's best friend, I just assumed you would have condoms. It never crossed my mind for a moment for a moment that you may be… gay? I don't know how you identify. Fuck, sorry, I'm screwing this up. I understand if you hate me."

Holly was looking at Gail with a degree of sympathy. "I don't hate you."

"You don't?"

"No. I mean, I'm embarrassed, slightly, about what you may have found. But I do understand, you were sixteen, I would have been too embarrassed to go to the store and buy condoms if _I'd _needed them when I was sixteen. And I'm just too tired of being angry to be too pissed at you right now."

"She's a real fucking idiot, Holly, you know that? She's doesn't deserve any space in your thoughts, angry or otherwise."

"We were so good for three years." Tears were rising once more, and it broke Gail's heart all over again.

"Which is why she's even more of a fucking idiot. I mean, look at you. You're spectacular. You're so beautiful. And you're smart, and funny, and nice. Only a complete fucking cretin would let you go."

Holly looked at her. She looked tired, every part of her. "That's nice of you to say, but you don't really know me that well. She knew me, better than anyone, and she decided that I wasn't enough for her."

"Sometimes people just do shitty things because they're shitty people, Holly. I'm sure it wasn't because of you. I'm certain of it, because the idea of you not being enough… well, that's just ridiculous."

"She wasn't a shitty person, though, that's the thing."

"That doesn't mean she did it because you weren't enough for her. People make stupid mistakes, they go through things, or things happen to them, and they make really stupid decisions about how to deal with it. I mean, I do it all the time, and it's always just because I feel like shit inside, not because I think any less of whoever I'm hurting."

Holly smiled weakly. "I don't know. I don't know what to think. I just don't understand, it's not like her at all. She hated cheaters."

"Had anything happened between you, recently?"

"Nothing big, I mean, we had a few arguments about how much I was working. I really wanted to do well this year, you know; graduate well. I'm applying to med schools at the moment and I didn't want to screw my chances by letting things slip in my senior year."

"Ok, well I mean, I don't know much about relationships, but it seems to me that if she can't deal with you trying to do well for yourself, academically, or in your career; if she can't see the bigger picture, that you're trying to do something that you really want to do, then she's not worth it. And if she dealt with it in the way that she did, then she's a coward, and then she's _really _not worth it."

Gail knew her arguments were largely falling on deaf ears, that when you mind up that you weren't good enough for someone, arguments to the contrary go largely unheard. But she hoped, beyond hope, that some of her words were seeping through, that Holly would realise she didn't deserve what had happened to her for a moment.

"You're wiser than I expected." Holly said quietly, after a long pause.

"Yeah, well when you have my parents you get used to dealing with people who make you feel inadequate."

"I'm sorry." Holly offered.

"Don't be, it's not your fault."

Holly tried to offer a smile of sorrow, but it didn't really happen.

"Are you going to go to your parents'?" Gail asked eventually.

"I don't know." Holly answered bleakly. "I really don't. It's kind of ridiculous that they don't know I was with someone for three years, I know that. But every time I was going to tell them I just thought, they were the only people who would break my heart if they couldn't accept it, even though I think they wouldn't care. I just didn't want to run the risk. And now, if they rejected me on top of _this_; I'm not sure I'd be able to cope with that."

"Holly, I am one hundred percent sure that your parents wouldn't have cared in the slightest. They'd just want to know you were happy."

"I know." Holly sighed. "I think so too. Probably. But it was just too scary. And Ellie never really cared that they didn't know, because we spent most of our time together in Montreal, and everyone there knew."

"Well if you want to stay here, you can. Or if you want to go, I'll drop you there."

"Thank you, Gail." Holly whispered. She looked like she was about to start crying again, so Gail reached over and pulled her into an embrace. Sure enough, the brunette soon started shaking into her shoulder and the sounds of sobbing restarted.

When Holly eventually fell silent, Gail continued the circle she had been absently tracing on her back with her fingers. The brunette pulled her head back, and Gail instinctively reached up to wipe her cheeks dry.

"I'm sorry, I've cried all over your sweater, it must be ruined." Holly whispered

"Don't worry about it." Gail, for some reason she didn't understand, continued to stroke Holly's cheek even though the tears were long dried.

Gail watched as Holly's gaze dropped to her lips, and felt her start to close the distance between them, but they never met, Holly stopped abruptly no more than an inch from her. She slumped, her gaze falling to her hands in her lap, and Gail wrapped her arms around her back once again. She was positive Holly had been about to kiss her. She would have put money on it. And she couldn't deny the fact that her heart was pounding out of her chest at the idea. But Holly looked so lost, like she didn't know which way was up, and Gail started the long process of convincing herself it meant nothing to the brunette. Nothing but a craving for comfort, a craving Gail was well acquainted with.

"I'm so tired." Holly murmured into her neck. Gail shivered slightly at the feeling of the brunette's breath on her skin.

"We have a spare bed, come on." Gail pulled the other woman to her feet and led her to the spare bedroom, picking up her bag from the hallway on route. She left her to get changed, heading downstairs to get them some water for them both, but when she knocked on Holly's door there was no response, and when she nudged the door open, the brunette was lying, eyes closed, under the covers, chest moving up and down with her steady breathing. Gail tiptoed in and placed the glass on the bedside table, turned off the lights, and went to her own room and climbed into bed. Three hours later, she finally managed to fall asleep.

~x~

The next morning, Gail was in the kitchen when Holly finally arose and walked down the stairs. Gail made them both toast and coffee, then Holly took a shower before making her departure for Montreal, having decided over night that she didn't want to see her parents just yet.

As Holly stood in the front door, making ready to leave, she looked nervous.

"What's up?" Gail asked.

"I don't know, I'm just going to have to see her when I get back. It's making me feel a bit sick." She may have felt sick, but she certainly looked healthier than she had the previous day. Her were no longer bloodshot, her skin was less pale – although that could have been makeup, Gail reasoned – her hair had been washed and her eyes were no longer darting around the room nervously like she had no idea what to do with herself.

"Tell her to go fuck herself. Tell her you deserve better, and you both know it."

Holly laughed slightly. "Thank you, Gail."

Gail smiled gently, but said nothing.

"For everything. It's so ridiculous, that I got on a seven hour bus journey and didn't even go home. But thank you for letting me stay here."

"It's not ridiculous, you needed to get out of Montreal; I get it. And then you had reasons to not want to talk to your parents; it's fine, I understand why you don't want to tell them. I completely get that, the idea of the people you trust and love the most turning around and hurting you is terrifying. Even if you're sure they won't. And when the time comes, I'm sure they won't either. And if they do, you can come here again, my parents are never home; it's actually kind of lonely here half the time."

Holly smiled. It was the closest she'd looked all weekend to regaining the wide, reassuring smile Gail was used to seeing on her.

"Plus, if you think about it, it may be for the best in the long run that you didn't tell them this weekend. I mean, coming out to your parents is a big deal, you want that to be a happy memory you can hold forever; not have it be a constant reminder of some fuck stain like Ellie hurting you."

Holly pondered that for a moment. "I suppose you're right."

"I'm always right." Gail grinned, and Holly laughed softly. "Here, give me your phone."

Holly handed it over without question, and Gail typed something into it. "Ok, you have my number. Text me when you get to the bus station. And then when you're home. Just so I don't worry."

Holly flicked through her contacts. "There's no Gail in here?"

"Oh, no, it's under 'Alex's superior best friend'."

Holly smiled. "Thank you. I should go, or I'm going to miss this bus." Gail highly doubted that, the bus wasn't due to leave for another hour and a quarter, and it was a maximum twenty five minute journey to the station on the subway, but she nodded. She suspected Holly wasn't one who was comfortable pushing deadlines tightly.

"Ok. Have a safe journey." Gail nodded.

"Thank you. I hope you have a good day. See you in the winter break, maybe?"

"Probably, unless I really piss Alex off before then."

Holly smiled softly and left in silence. Gail watched her walk down the road for a moment, then shut the door gently, and let out a long breath. Her entire body was aching somewhat at the brunette's absence. That couldn't be a good sign. Friends definitely weren't meant to feel like that about each other. And she'd definitely never almost kissed one of her friends before. "Fuck." She whispered.

**Pt. 5**

Gail only received three texts from Holly over the next six months. The first to let her know she was at the bus station, the second stating that she had arrived in Montreal, and the third about a week before Christmas, reading _"Told my parents. You were right. Mom won't stop crying because she thinks I was scared of them knowing. I think Dad's secretly pleased no guys will be violating his daughter. Won't tell them about Alex's quest for condoms, then! Thank you! –H x". _

Gail just replied to congratulate her and let her know she was happy. She didn't bother to point out that Holly _was_ scared of her parents knowing. She never received a response to that though, not that she was particularly expecting one.

Sure enough, that evening, Alex turned up on her doorstep to recount the entire exchange Holly had had with them, apparently she'd told them all together over lunch. Alex, to Gail, seemed to be in some sort of shock.

"I'm happy for her, I really am. I just never expected it!" Alex explained as they watched a dreary action movie. "She's so pretty, and I know she doesn't really wear dresses but she has beautiful long hair."

Gail looked across at her best friend.

"You know being a lesbian doesn't mean you have to be any less feminine."

"I _know._" Alex assured her. "I mean, Portia de Rossi is gay and feminine, I know. But the ones you see in real life, on the street and that, they're always kind of butch."

Gail frowned slightly. "Don't you think, maybe that's because when you see a feminine person on the street you're assuming they're straight and when you see a butch girl you're assuming they're gay." She pointed out.

"Huh." Alex shrugs. "I hadn't thought of it like that."

"It's not like we really know many people who are out as gay." Gail pointed out. "Although even if we did I still don't think it's good to generalise a whole group of people."

"I used to think Lizzie was a little gay." Alex mused. "I thought she had a crush on Holly, to be honest. With that stuff she used to say about the boys fancying her."

Gail froze. "I think maybe Lizzie's one of those people confident enough to say she finds people objectively attractive and not worry about people thinking she's gay." She said slowly, vocalising one of the very clear differences between herself and their friend. "Besides, she's admitted she's seeing Tim now, so I don't think you have anything to worry about."

"Thank God, can you imagine, one of us dating Holly."

Gail shuffled nervously.

Alex continued. "It would be like me and Steve hooking up."

"Ew no, Steve is twenty six, that would be creepy. At least Holly's only twenty two. And she's a girl; that makes it better, for some reason."

"It's still really weird." Alex observed, but thankfully seemed to drop the subject, focussing on the movie instead. "Hey, do you think she was sleeping with that Ellie girl who kept coming over?" She asked eventually, wide eyed.

Apparently Holly had not told them everything. "I don't know. I guess, maybe. But just because you're gay doesn't mean every relationship you have with a girl is romantic. They always just seemed like friends to me." She answered slowly.

When Alex finally left that night, Gail breathed an enormous sigh of relief.

~x~

Gail did run into Holly a couple of times that Christmas. Both times the brunette smiled widely at her. Gail found herself unexpectedly relieved that her usual smile had returned in full force. Both times Holly had been in a rush to go somewhere, but she had made a point to stop and ask Gail how she was, how her university applications were going, if she was excited to finish school? Both times Gail's heart started thudding uncontrollably at the acknowledgement that the other girl was actually taking the time to talk to her, where for the last eight years she had just smiled at her brightly then continued with her day.

The situation had gotten beyond complicated. But after one particularly graphic but sensual dream in February, the blonde could no longer deny that she had feelings for her best friend's older sister. Big, hard, "I want to be with you every moment of every day, and definitely every night" type feelings. She didn't let herself dwell on what that meant other than the fact that she was screwed.

Aside from the fact that Alex would probably skin her alive if she found out, she also found herself considering, for the first time, the fact that Holly probably didn't feel the same way about her.

That had never been a consideration before, when it had just been a crush, and there was no idea in Gail's head of their relationship ever extending beyond Gail admiring the other girl from afar. Now it weighed on her every day. Holly was smart, older, mature, funny… so many things. Gail still hadn't graduated high school, she was dorky, awkward, mean and most of all, her younger sister's best friend. A best friend she had seen pretending to be a galactic Starfighter pilot when Gail was ten, fail catastrophically at playing softball for three years, and who, aged sixteen had knocked on her bedroom door - probably interrupting her having sex, Gail now realised – embarrassed red raw about asking for a tampon.

There was a higher likelihood of pigs flying than of Holly finding Gail in any way desirable.

The only moment she was lifted from her funk about Holly's probable feelings was on the day of their Prom. Well, technically it wasn't _her _prom, but Gail had skipped her own, due to her intense dislike of her peers, and Alex had suggested she come as her date to theirs. Alex, after the initial shock had subsided, had launched herself into her new identity as a PFLAG, and glared down anyone who raised an eyebrow at the idea that you should only bring someone of the opposite sex to your prom.

"Stop being so heteronormative!" She had shouted at more than one person. Heteronormative was one of her new favourite words. It was a term Gail, too, had discovered, in her own, much more secretive, research on the LGBT community.

The girls; Gail, Lizzie, Alex, and to Gail's disdain, Lucy, got ready at Alex's house. Gail did consider it weird that the boys should get ready separately, and thought maybe either she or Alex should be with them. But then she remembered Alex was her date in name only. And that would involve labelling one of them as 'the man', and as she was sure Alex would shout at someone who suggested such a thing, "There is no man, that's the POINT!"

Gail wondered what Holly thought about her sister's new, exuberant activism.

When the boys arrived, their parents lined them up for photographs, together, then separately, then in gender groups, then as couples. Alex insisted she and Gail got a photo together. Gail noticed Holly emerge into the front garden to stand next to her parents as Alex protested the unfairness of the straight couples getting photos together but not gay ones. Holly rolled her eyes at her sister's antics, but looked both amused and warmed by the gesture.

Then Gail pointed out that they weren't actually a couple, and Holly laughed softly, smiling brightly as she looked over at the blonde. Gail was certain she wasn't kidding herself that Holly's eyes did a quick roam of her entire body, from her heeled feet, up through her tight, black, mid-thigh length dress, over her chest and to her face.

To be fair, Gail argued with herself, she did look good. She would have checked her out; Holly doing so didn't mean anything other than that she looked hot. She didn't dwell on the fact that Lizzie looked just as good as her, if not better, and had not received the same treatment from the older girl.

The Prom turned out to be quite good fun, in the end, once they actually got there. Alex abandoned her after about half an hour to go for a "walk" outside with one of her male peers. Not that it really bothered Gail. Tim and Lizzie stayed with her most of the night, neither of them particularly keen or talented dancers. Then one of their peers asked her to dance, and she acquiesced, more to leave Tim and Lizzie alone than anything, and stayed on the dancefloor with him until the night ended. Once they were ushered out by disgruntled teachers, Gail headed home with Alex and they both passed out on her bed from exhaustion and the slight tipsiness brought on from the alcohol them had smuggled into the prom.

~x~

Mid way through the summer, Alex and Holly threw a party. Their parents had gone on holiday. Rob, then sixteen, was also there, but allowed only to invite one of his friends. Gail barely knew anyone in attendance well other than the Stewarts and her best friends, although she recognised many of Alex's guests from the Prom and some of Holly's from the game of softball the summer before.

Holly had bought the alcohol for Alex, Gail and the other four. There was a lot of it. Gail suspected Holly had forgotten how little alcohol the underage, pre-university, eighteen year old body could handle. There was tequila and vodka and two large crates of beer. The boys' eyes had widened when they saw it. They'd never really drunk spirits as a group before, usually just consuming the beers their parents provided for them.

Holly had poured them out shots early in the party and done two rounds with them before moving on to speak to her friends, her eyes sparkling.

It was a good number of people for the size of their house. One of Holly's friends, a boy named Ethan, took a shine to her pretty early on, and Gail had initially stayed hanging around him because he gave her an in to a conversation Holly was involved in, in the garden. A group of six friends, most of whom had just graduated from college, chatted nostalgically about their time at school together, while Gail listened and watched Holly. She looked happy, really happy. She was smiling and laughing, but somehow, whenever she caught Gail's eye, that smile seemed to stretch even wider.

Then, somehow, the others disappeared back into the kitchen, and Gail was left alone with the object of her affection. "Hi." She said shyly.

"Hey. How are you doing?"

Drunk, to be honest. Gail definitely felt quite drunk. "I'm good. How are you?"

"I'm great." Holly smiled widely. "Alex told me you're going to McMaster in the fall?"

Gail nodded. Somehow she had been accepted into a university her mother actually approved of. Although, Gail knew she would have her to get into U of T, but that was never going to happen. Also it would have meant Gail staying at home through university. No chance.

"What about you, where are you going?" Gail asked, forgetting in her drunkenness that if Holly had failed in her attempts to get into med school that it could be an awkward question.

"Toronto." Holly smiled. "I actually wanted to go to Mac, their med school programme is amazing, but I didn't get in. I'm kind of jealous."

"Yeah, but _Toronto_." Gail was impressed. "My mom wanted me to go to Toronto."

"Look at us, getting into each other's colleges." Holly smiled warmly.

"I'm leaving the city just as you're coming back." Gail pointed out.

"That's what mom said about me and Alex." Alex was going to Queens.

"Are you going to live at home?" Gail asked.

Holly shook her head. "My friend Samantha, over there, is going to Toronto for her masters, we're going to get an apartment together."

Just then, Alex appeared, and grabbed her best friend's hand. "Come on Gail, we're going to do shots!" She dragged the blonde back into the house. Holly watched them leave, amused.

Three rounds of shots later, Gail was definitely as drunk as she'd ever been. Ethan had found his way back to her, and at some point, when they were sat on a bench in the garden, his lips had found their way to hers. She gave in, Ethan was good looking and Holly was, she knew, a distant dream. They made out a few times, between conversations with various people. Then he wanted to go to a bedroom.

Gail may not have had many inhibitions left at that point, but she knew fooling around in a bed belonging to one of her best friend's family members was crossing a line. So they went to the bathroom instead. The logic of the drunken brain was somewhat interesting.

She was leant back against the wall next to the sink, shirt off, with him in front of her, one hand wrapped around her back, and another down her pants, when the bathroom door swung open.

"Oh." A familiar voice started.

The couple broke apart, and Gail's eyes widened in horror. Holly was stood frozen in the doorway.

"Shit, sorry." Ethan murmured. "I thought I locked it."

Holly started to back out of the room slowly.

Gail gave Ethan a shove and she pushed off the wall, retrieving her shirt and re-buttoning her jeans.

"Go away." She demanded. Holly seemed to pause, thinking the words were aimed at her, but Gail's glare was focussed solely on the man in front of her.

He looked at her suspiciously, before shrugging and skulking out of the room. Holly made to follow.

"Holly, wait." Gail called. The brunette stopped for a long moment before turning around.

"I'm so sorry." Gail gushed. "I didn't mean to… I don't know what I was thinking."

"Gail, it's fine, I'm not going to tell you what you should and shouldn't do." Holly replied, but she didn't look fine, she glanced around, not looking Gail directly in the eye. "That doesn't necessarily mean I think I it's a good idea though."

Gail shook her head. She felt slightly sick, and couldn't think straight. Fuck, she was so drunk.

"It wasn't, it wasn't a good idea." Gail conceded. "I wish I didn't do it."

"Everyone does things they don't mean to when they're drunk, Gail, its fine."

"No, no, it's not fine. I didn't want to get this drunk, I'm sorry."

"Gail, stop apologising." Holly said, finally looking her in the eye. She looked sad, disappointed, or something.

"Sorry." Gail snapped her mouth shut. "I'm not that kind of person, I don't do that, ever. That's not me."

"I'm not judging you Gail. And I won't tell anyone what I saw, I promise."

Gail persisted. "No, Holly, it's important to me that you know that it's not me. I don't want you thinking that's what I want. I hate that _you _caught me. I always make an idiot of myself in front of you." Gail admitted, with more honesty than she would soberly have been comfortable with.

Holly looked at her intently. "You don't make an idiot in front of me, and I believe it's not you. I guess that's why it was a bit of a shock, I suppose. I kind of imagined catching Alex doing something like that, not you."

"You won't again, catch me, that is. It won't happen. I wouldn't." Gail knew she was repeating herself but her brain wasn't coming up with anything else to say, and she couldn't live thinking Holly in any way thought she was really interested in having sex with boys she just met.

Holly was staring right into Gail's soul. "I know, Gail." She repeated.

Lacking the ability to think of anything else to say, Gail then let her basal instincts take over. "I just, I…" She didn't finish her own sentence as she pushed her lips to Holly's. They were soft and gentle, frozen still for a few seconds in shock, then moving against Gail's for a moment before the brunette pulled back, apparently realising what she was doing.

They looked at each other in silence and bewilderment for a few moments, before Holly spoke. "You're really drunk. You should probably go sleep in Alex's room."

"I… ok." Gail conceded, shocked at her own behaviour, she turned towards the bedroom she had been in a thousand times. At the door she looked back, "Holly, I'm really…" but Holly was no longer there.

Inside the room, she fell face first into Alex's bed and passed out immediately.

**Pt. 6**

The next morning, Gail experienced the worst hangover of her life. Alex, however, was extremely chipper. Apparently she had hit it off with one of her former peers, and they'd stayed up all night talking. Gail suspected from her boundless energy that she was still drunk.

"We barely even kissed, Gail!" Alex explained enthusiastically. "We just chatted for hours after everybody left. Can you believe I hit it off with a guy at a party and didn't feel him up?"

Gail groaned at the role reversal of their usual behaviours.

"Anyway, we went out to breakfast together, and I just got back, but Holly said she thought you were feeling a little rough. What happened to you last night, I don't remember seeing you much?"

Gail shook her head and buried it in her pillow. "Don't remember." That was a lie. While her memory was not fantastic, she definitely remembered getting caught being fingered in her best friend's bathroom, and she could not, even if she tried, forget kissing said best friend's sister.

"Rough." Alex said sympathetically stroking her back. "Look, I'm just going to shower, then I'm going out to a Blue Jays game with Paul, but Holly's downstairs. I'm going to leave you some water here, and some bread, if you fancy trying to eat. Don't worry if you just want to stay in bed all day though, I don't mind."

After Alex left, Gail spent about an hour lying completely still, sweating viciously and willing away her pounding headache and aching nausea.

She eventually tried to drink some water, which helped, and eat the bread, which did not. Given her exceptional grogginess, Gail was impressed at herself for even making it to the toilet before her insides emptied themselves. As she sat on the floor, head held over the porcelain bowl, she looked up at the wall Ethan had her pressed against the previous night, and her nausea increased tenfold.

Holly must have heard the sudden movement, because she was soon knocking at the bathroom door. "Can I come in?" She said quietly.

Gail could only groan in response, and she entered. She slid down to sit on the opposite side of the toilet bowl to the blonde, placing a glass of water on the floor as she did so, and reached over to start stroking her back comfortingly. Even when she felt like this, Gail couldn't help but notice that Holly was much better at back stroking than her sister.

"We need to stop running into each other in here." Holly attempted a joke.

"Believe me, I'm trying." Gail whispered hoarsely.

Holly smiled sympathetically, continuing her rhythmic stroking.

It was only after throwing up three more times that Gail felt ready to address the elephant in the room.

"Holly, I'm so, so, sorry about last night."

"It's ok, we don't need to talk about it now." Holly tried to reassure her.

"No, I want to. If you don't mind, that is?"

Holly nodded, slowly. "If you're sure."

"I have never been that drunk before. I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking, and I was hormonal, and…"

"It's ok, Gail. I get it. You made a mistake, and you didn't know how to deal with it. I don't mind. I like you a lot, I think you're funny and sweet, and you have a great heart. I don't want you to think I think any less of you because of it. I feel like we were just starting to get to know each other, and we could be really good friends. I'd hate for this to stand in the way of that."

Gail considered her words. She knew that if she was going to tell Holly, now was the best moment to do it. But Holly had used the word 'Friends'. She had given no indication that she liked her in any way other than platonically. And Gail just couldn't deal with that rejection, not yet. Not today. "I'd like to be friends too." She said weakly, and Holly smiled brightly.

"Do you think you're ready to come downstairs yet?

Gail shook her head. "I think I'm going to sit here and feel sorry for myself a little while longer."

"Do you want me to stay?" Holly asked.

Gail shook her head again. "No, it's ok. I'll be down soon."

Holly gave her a sympathetic look and left the room, the half empty glass of water the only evidence she'd been there at all.

~x~

Gail didn't leave the Stewart house for the rest of the week. Partly because staying there was infinitely preferable to going home and dealing with her parents, and partly because she didn't want to break this fragile friendship she had going with Holly. She worried that if she left their house, she'd stop seeing her altogether; it wasn't like they had ever really hung out with each other much before outside of Holly's home, but as long as they were both there, they seemed to keep ending up doing stuff together.

One night they stayed up and played card games together; Gail and all three siblings. Alex, it turned out, was a bit of a card shark, but after an hour or so, Gail and Holly had silently worked out a few ways to team up so she wouldn't win every single game. Meanwhile Rob had been quietly accumulating quite some winnings, often taking advantage of Gail and Holly's mission to stop Alex winning at any cost. He was a dark horse; the youngest Stewart sibling. When Alex realised that the two other girls had been in cohorts, she had demanded that they take over her washing up duties. As they cleaned and dried the dishes, Holly explained how their grandmother, who had always made it clear Alex was her favourite granddaughter because Holly was 'a little too boring', had taught Alex to shark after their poker game last summer.

Another day they watched a Star Wars marathon. Gail and Holly had been sat at opposite ends of the three person couch with no-one between them for two films already when Gail adjusted her position and lay down, accidentally nudging Holly's thigh with her toe as she did so. Holly simply lifted Gail's calves over her lap, not taking her eyes off the screen as she did so – to be fair Princess Leia was wearing her gold bikini and it was not hard to see what on screen was capturing Holly's attention so intently – encouraging Gail to stretch across the length of the couch. When Leia had put some clothes back on and Holly's captivation mellowed somewhat, she looked across at Gail and smiled, before gently starting to massage her feet. That day was the first time since Gail was a child that she had seen Holly wearing glasses instead of lenses. It was a good look; she had a kind of sexy, authoritative thing going on that Gail digged. Alex never noticed that anything was happening in the room, but Rob hissed a quiet, yet discernable "Get a room!" on his way to bed.

On the day that Lizzie and the boys were going to come over for a barbeque, Holly helped them prepare the salads and marinate the meat. Then, when they had finished, and realised they had no other excuse to spend time together, Holly offered to help them bake a cake. She ended up doing most of the work, naturally, while Gail and Alex largely just waited around to eat the batter from the bowls. When their friends arrived, Holly had started to head towards the stairs, only to be stopped by Gail's hand on her wrist as she walked past the blonde. "Eat with us; you made most of the food anyway." Gail asked, in a low voice. Holly's lips curled into a smile, and she nodded, following Gail out to the garden. She stayed, talking to Gail, and to Lizzie, for a couple of hours until Paul arrived, and she took her absence, softly whispering that she had no desire to see some boy's hands all over her little sister. That evening, when the boys had left, and Alex had gone to bed, Lizzie asked her if anything was happening between she and Holly, and Gail brushed her off, recalling what Alex had told her a few months before about thinking _Lizzie _had a thing for Holly. Lizzie just shrugged and didn't pursue the topic.

One evening, Rob had suggested a video game tournament. Although she had no games consoles as a child, years of playing with Rob and Alex, as well as at Steve's when he had moved into a place of his own, had made her the best player of the group. And for that she was given Holly as a teammate. Holly was truly dreadful, which wouldn't normally have been a problem, as Gail was almost good enough to play for two, only Holly had a terrible habit of accidentally killing her – lord knows how, as she was killing absolutely no-one else. They had pretty much got the friendly fire issue under control after an hour or so though, and then they moved onto racing games, which unleashed a whole new barrage of problems as the older girl got increasingly infuriated by the lack of realism to the driving simulators; "You can't accelerate and break at the same time, that's insane; you'd go straight off the road!". Alex later informed Gail that she had never once before seen Holly play on their games consoles, and while she was not very surprised at the information, it lit a spark of hope in her that Holly was participating in things she would otherwise avoid.

Then; one afternoon, as they lay in the back garden, Holly reading a medical textbook in the sun, Alex next to her on her phone, and Gail hiding in what little shade she could find, reading up on her programme at McMaster on Holly's iPad, Alex declared that she was headed on a date with Paul that evening. Gail looked around nervously, wondering if that meant she had to finally go home.

"No worries, Gail and I will just have dinner or something and watch television." Holly replied, like it was the most normal thing in the world. She looked up at the blonde. "Unless you want to go home?"

Gail shook her head, maybe slightly too enthusiastically. "Your plan sounds good."

"Can you top up my sun screen?" Holly asked her sister.

Alex stood up and shook her head. "Sorry, I'm going to get ready."

"When is this date?"

"Three hours, but I need to wash my hair, pick out an outfit, loads of things… get Gail to do it."

Holly glanced over at Gail as Alex left. She looked as uneasy as Gail felt; like the levels of comfort they had reached with each other this week still hadn't quite put them at a level where this was ok yet. Like neither of them knew for sure that they were ready yet to have the other person's hands roaming over their naked skin. But Holly apparently decided the benefits outweighed the costs, and she held out the bottle. "Do you mind? Sorry."

Gail swallowed. "No, it's fine." She walked over to the other girl, feeling the sun's rays on the back of her neck the moment she was out of the shade. She squirted the cream over the expanse of olive skin covering the brunette's back. She saw Holly shiver at the sudden coldness of the lotion. "Sorry." She murmured, before starting to rub it in at Holly's shoulders, and working down her back.

"Do you even need sun screen? I can't imagine you get sun burnt much." Gail asked as she rubbed the cream in gently.

"No, I don't really, not in Canada, anyway. But I have quite a few moles, so best to be safe, I suppose." That was true, Gail observed. The skin on Holly's back was completely clear aside from a pattern of small dark dots, scattered from her neck to her waist.

When she was finally done, and it took a while, because while her initial intention had been to get the job over with as quickly as possible, by the time she was finishing she found she was dragging it out as long as possible, she realised she, too could do with a top up. Probably more than Holly.

"Would you mind?" She asked, holding out her own, ultra high protection sun block.

"You can't be getting much sun under that tree." Holly observed.

"Sun finds me everywhere." Gail grunted in response, as Holly pulled her tank top straps down over her shoulders to get better access to the top of her back. Unlike Holly, she had not opted for a bikini, but she regretted that decision when it became clear that Holly was going to be finished applying the lotion to her upper back and shoulders much more quickly than she had taken to cover Holly's entire spine.

"I remember a few years ago when Ellie and I were out here sunbathing, she glanced up at Alex's window and there were four people staring down at us." Holly mused lightheartedly as she finished, and Gail could feel herself turning bright red.

"I didn't know you saw that." Gail mumbled, turning around and lying next to her.

"Yes, well, you weren't very subtle." Holly smirked.

Gail's embarrassment lessened only slightly at Holly's brushing off of the incident; she tried to think of a way to defend herself, but found she was coming up blank.

"I think she almost enjoyed it, in a slightly voyeuristic way." Holly recalled.

"We weren't looking at _her_." Gail blurted out, before she could stop herself.

Holly looked up at her, eyebrow raised.

Gail paused, trying to think of a way to explain herself. "We had this thing; we used to joke about how hot you were because it wound Alex up. And even though it was mostly a joke, the basis of it was true, we did all kind of fancy you." Well, if she was hoping to dig herself out of this hole, she had probably just failed.

"Huh." Holly looked thoughtful. "I guess I was used to being such a nerdy outsider. I never thought that people would fancy me much."

"Well, we didn't know how much of a massive dweeb you were back then." Gail teased. Back to familiar territory, thank God.

Holly batted her shoulder lightly. "Because you're _so_ cool."

Gail grinned. "I am, actually."

"Yeah, right. Shouldn't you be getting back under your tree so you don't start to fry?" Holly teased.

Gail pouted. She probably should, even through her many layers of sun block she could feel the sun launching a restless attack on her milky complexion.

"Summer is awful." She grumbled as she sat back down in the shade.

Holly just grinned at her silently as she picked up her book and continued reading.


	3. Chapter 3

**Pt. 7**

With Alex out on her date, Holly prepared them a lasagne for dinner that night. Gail sat on the kitchen worktop next to the stove top, chatting away to the older girl as she moved around the kitchen, chopping and cooking up their food.

Holly had swapped her glasses for contact lenses again, and Gail found she enjoyed them now as much as she had done a few nights previously.

"You know when you wear your glasses your nerd factor boosts by at least twenty?" She asked.

"Well they are the source of my nerdy powers." Holly retorted.

"So how does that work? You get a power boost only when you're wearing them, or you have to wear them for a couple of hours to recharge the power supply that feeds you for the rest of the day?" Gail asked.

Holly considered the question. "The second one. But I have to wear them for five or six hours, I have a pretty large, powerful supply that needs replenishing; it takes time."

"You should wear them all the time, save the trouble of constantly worrying about if it's is going to run out." Gail suggests.

After a moment of consideration, a teasing smile appeared on Holly's face. "Gail Peck, is this your very roundabout way of complimenting my glasses and saying I should wear them more often?"

Gail scowled, more at herself than at Holly. "Maybe. They suit you." She shrugged.

"Because I am such an enormous nerd?" Holly inquired.

Gail's scowl lifted at Holly's ability to not make a big deal of the rare moments in which the blonde exposed her, usually very well locked away, thoughts and emotions. "Exactly."

Holly grinned at her, an almost knowing look in her eyes. "Of course."

They continued chatting, or Holly did, mostly, as Gail was largely just watching the brunette intently, occasionally chipping in to conversation or answering Holly's questions. By and large though, Holly seemed content to continue talking uninterrupted about her Med school course, and then when she had finished talking about that, about her apartment hunt.

Gail just watched, taking in the grace in the way the other girl moved, the ripple in her bicep muscles as she stirred the béchamel sauce, the way her eyes seemed to literally sparkle when she was discussing something she was passionate about.

If Gail had ever before been able to pretend that she couldn't really know if she was falling for Holly Stewart because she didn't really know her that well, this past few days had disproved that. She was, to Gail, both the most interesting and the most beautiful person on the planet. She made her feel warm and comforted inside, but also tingly and excited. She craved to touch her, or to be touched by her. When she was the first and only person her thoughts went to when she was turned on. When she lay in Alex's bed at night she wished over and over that it was the other Stewart girl lying next to her. When they were in conversation together she wished it would never end.

She was in far deeper than she expected.

So deep, that it made those fears of rejection seem less and less significant. The idea that in a month they would once again be living in different cities gave her a sense of urgency. A feeling that if she didn't act soon the chance would be gone. She knew she'd already missed one chance when they'd been talking over the toilet bowl a week earlier. Like fuck was she missing another.

Maybe it was that realisation that she was running out of time. Maybe it was the way Holly's already excited face would light up whenever she glanced up at the blonde girl watching her from the worktop. Maybe it was those goddamn glasses. But whatever the reason, Gail was unable to stop herself.

As Holly moved past her to retrieve something from the fridge, Gail put her hand on Holly's shoulder, stopping the brunette in her tracks and turning her to face her. Before a look of bewilderment had managed to properly form on Holly's face, Gail had moved her hand to Holly's jaw, leant in, and pressed their lips firmly, yet somehow also softly, together.

Like before, Holly took a moment to react to the unexpected move, but unlike before, when she did react, she let herself fall completely into it. Gail felt Holly moving her soft, plush, lips gently against her own. Her hand came to rest gently on Gail's hip. It was tender, but not tentative.

It didn't last very long, although it felt to Gail like it may have. When Holly pulled back she didn't step away like she had before, putting distance between them. She hovered, only inches from Gail's own face, her dark eyes flickering up to meet Gail's pale blue orbs. She had a light confusion dancing across her expression, but a dark desire in her eyes.

Gail bit her lip, waiting for what was going to happen next.

"What… you kissed me?" Holly whispered eventually.

Gail nodded softly.

"And you're not drunk?" Holly enquired.

Gail shook her head, the movement barely visible, but there.

"You…" Holly whispered, Gail could see the processing going on behind her eyes.

When Holly had remained silent for a few minutes, Gail's insides started to clench. "Sorry." She whispered.

Holly's eyes darted up to meet her own. "No, no. Don't be sorry. Just… give me a moment."

Gail waited. She bit her lip and she waited, for what felt like an eternity. "Tell me what you're thinking." There was a hint of desperation in her whisper that she couldn't contain.

"I… you're my sister's best friend." Holly replied, slowly and quietly.

Gail nodded gently.

"You kissed me, because you like me?" Holly asked; tentatively, nervously.

Gail nodded again.

"How long?"

"Years, maybe. But since November. Since you came to my house, after Ellie. That's when I really… knew?" Gail took a deep breath to calm herself. Exposing herself like this was really not her thing, but she didn't want to put Holly off when they had got this far with her usual reclusive act. This may have been it, this may have been the moment, and she did not want to fuck it up now.

Holly nodded once, as slowly as Gail had ever seen anyone move their head. "So at the party, when you kissed me. It wasn't because you were upset. You didn't just want to kiss a girl to see what it was like?"

Gail shook her head. "I wanted you to know I didn't want Ethan. It was stupid."

"Because you wanted me?"

Gail nodded. Then there was silence. "I'm sorry." Gail offered again.

"Stop apologising." Holly smiled softly, it wasn't her usual smile, but it was just as reassuring.

"Did you… do you, like me?" Gail asked eventually. This was the question, the moment that could crush her. She held her breath in anticipation.

Holly nodded. "Yes, I like you; I can barely stop flirting when you're around, I played video games just to be near you for Christ's sake, of course I like you, but… I thought you were straight. I knew you had a crush on me a few years ago but I thought you were straight."

"You knew?" Gail's eyes widened in mortification.

"You used to turn bright red every time you spoke to me." Holly laughed softly.

Gail could feel her skin turning equally red right then.

Holly reached up to stroke her cheek. "Don't be embarrassed, it was cute."

"But you like me? Now I'm less weird, you like me?" Gail's heart was beating out of her chest, she needed to hear it again. To be sure, absolutely sure, that this was happening.

"You're still pretty weird, Gail." Holly said softly. "But I like it, I like weird."

"You do?"

Holly smiles widely, and Gail's heart melted. "Yes." She leant in and pressed her lips gently against the younger woman's again, as if to demonstrate how much she meant it. She moved to pull back, but Gail held her in place, tracing her tongue over Holly's lips before the older woman opened them and let her in. She cupped Holly's jaw, running her thumb across the smooth skin of her cheek, as Holly's hand slipped into her hair. It was deep, and passionate, and there was a longing there Gail never before knew existed, but when she moaned into the other woman's mouth, a switch seemed to flick in Holly's mind, and she pulled back.

"Wait, hang on a moment." Holly whispered. "We should, we should talk more. This isn't simple, this isn't just two people liking each other, you're young, and you're my sister's best friend. And you're leaving soon. We just, we need to talk. I need to think."

"We can talk." Gail replied softly.

"Ok. Cool. You start, you talk, I'm just… I can't think, right now… of how to start talking."

"Ok… Since when?" Gail asked.

Holly looked at her, confused. "Since what?"

"Since when did you start to like me?"

"Well, like I said, you were cute, you always have been cute, even when it stopped being child-cute and started becoming woman-cute. But I guess last summer, when we started to hang out normally for the first time. You made me laugh so much, all the time, and you were really sexy when you were insulting your friends but I could tell you had this enormous heart."

Gail struggled to keep the bashful smile off her face as she protested Holly's description of her. "I'm not cute, Holly."

"Ok, except you are." Holly's lips twitched into an affectionate, teasing smile.

"Stick with sexy, I liked that one." Gail demanded lightly.

"Why can't you be both?" Holly asked. "Because you are. And you're gorgeous, and hot, and beautiful. All of those."

Gail was blushing so hard she was fairly certain she was close to combusting, such was the heat of the blood running through her face.

"Inside and out. I almost didn't come to see you when I found out about Ellie because I was worried it would be too confusing. But I didn't have a whole lot of choice, I didn't know anyone else who would be home in the city. I was so glad I did though. You made me feel like a person again. What she did should have broken me for months, but it didn't, because of you."

Gail had to look away, she wasn't used to anyone such an open declaration of feelings, and she didn't know how to react.

"Sorry," Holly whispered. "Was that too much? Sometimes when I start to talk about my feelings it just all comes pouring out. That was pretty intense, please don't be scared off." Holly looked at her pleadingly. "This is why I wanted to talk about things, because we should be honest, about this, about us. About where we stand because to be honest I'm kind of confused right now, and you probably are too, but if we aren't in the same place…"

Gail looked back into the dark eyes in front of her, and could see they were flecked with specks of worry. "I'm not scared off."

"Good, because when I'm with someone, I like to tell them all the time how wonderful they are. So you're going to have to get used to it. If this is going to be a thing; us, and the kissing…"

"You're a sap." Gail teased.

"Yet you still like me." Holly grinned so widely Gail thought she was going to strain a muscle. "I still can't quite believe that."

"You'd better start believing it, nerd."

"This is… completely surreal to me." Holly whispered. "I should probably finish cooking. I can think, while I cook. If that's ok with you, me just… thinking for a few minutes?"

Gail just watched her cook, simultaneously excited and terrified by what may be going through the brunette's mind. Then Holly finished preparing the food and put it in the oven. She turned around, and the two girls eyed each other in silence for a few minutes. Holly still looked lost in thought, and Gail was unwilling to interrupt her.

"Why did you kiss me?" Holly eventually asked, quietly.

"Because… you were there, and I liked you and I was sick of you not knowing I liked you and…"

"No, sorry, I mean, what did you want from it? Did you want us to become a thing, to, you know, kiss again?"

Gail looked around nervously. "I was kind of hoping so, maybe, yes?"

"Because you're leaving in a few weeks, don't you think maybe that could be… difficult, or setting yourself up to be let down, or something."

"I guess I just wanted to try, to give it a go, even if the chances aren't great. I looked at you and I kind of realised that I didn't care about the other stuff, I just wanted… you… now, for the next two weeks, whatever we could have, I wanted it..." Gail trailed off, now extremely nervous and uncomfortable.

And then, because timing is ever the enemy of romance, the front door swung open and slammed shut.

"Rob?" Holly called out.

"Hi. Is dinner ready?" A low, surly voice returned.

Holly glanced at her phone. "Ten minutes."

"Cool." They heard a pair of feet trudging up stairs.

Holly leaned back against the table in silence. Too much silence.

"What do you want, why did you kiss me back?" Gail asked, unable to stand it any longer.

"I wanted to give it a try too, I do, still want to give it a try, in my heart, there's no question that's what I want. I'm just… I've been making out with my little sister's best friend. No, that's _too_ weird, I don't like thinking like that at all. And you're eighteen, you're basically a fetus."

"I _am _an adult." Gail pointed out.

"A very young adult. I'm a very different person than I was when I was eighteen. You're about to go to university, everything is about to change for you."

"Everything is already changing for me." Gail argued.

"You're not scared?"

"About change. About me?"

Gail sighed. "I've spent four years coming to terms with how I feel about you, Holly. I was scared, at times. But right now it makes sense. More sense than anything has ever made to me, really."

"Ok. Right. Good, because I don't… I know you wouldn't do this, but you need to know, I don't want to be your experiment before you leave. I trust you, I believe that you genuinely like me, but you need to know that I'm trusting you."

"I'm not experimenting." Gail assured her. "This is real to me, how I feel, everything is real, it's not some sort of weird, sick game."

"Ok. Good. I didn't think it was, no, I knew it wasn't. Ok." Gail could pretty much see Holly's mind working in overdrive behind her eyes. "I have such a good time with you, I think you're so attractive and you make me laugh so much. You make my heart jump around whenever you're near, I only ever remember feeling like that with Ellie before, but I can't really compare because every time I think of her now I just get angry. I know you're special though, you're _something _to me. But I also know you're young, and you're Alex's best friend –and she will murder both of us if she finds out about this, by the way-, and you're leaving soon. So I don't know what that means. Where does that put us?"

"I don't know." Gail confessed. "I want to be with you, I know that. I also don't want to die at Alex's hands. But apart from that, I don't know. What about you?"

"The same."

Gail sighed. "Ok, so I guess the question we need to answer now, is… well, you need to answer it, because I know what my own answer is, do you want to try this, us? Do you want to give us a go and see where that takes us?"

Holly looked her straight in the eye, pondering the question for a moment. "Yes." She said slowly, then seemed to gain more confidence. "I do, I want to try something between us, even if it's just for the next few weeks, I want to give it a go. I don't know what that means, what we will be, or what will happen, but I want to try."

"Does this mean I can kiss you again?"

Holly smiled, answering Gail's question by pressing their lips together, gently letting herself sink into it as Gail brought both hands up to hold her face, taking in the knowledge that they had just agreed to embark on something, some sort of thing that was more than friendship that was theirs.

A door slammed upstairs.

"When do you move into your own apartment?" Gail asked, glaring at the ceiling, Holly's cheeks both still under her hands.

"A couple of weeks, hopefully, if we can get our lease sorted."

"Maybe we'll be able to work things out better once you're not living here." Gail suggested.

Holly offered a weak smile. "Hopefully."

"Hey." Gail stroked her cheek with her thumb. "Don't start doubting this yet."

Holly smiled. "I never took you for the optimist."

"I'm not." Gail admitted. "I guess I never thought until an hour ago that you could possibly like me. It's giving me a newfound sense of hopefulness. Don't worry, I'll be back to my usual self tomorrow."

"Don't completely stop being hopeful. We're going to need a little hope if this is going to be something."

"I won't if you won't."

Holly smiled, and pecked the younger woman's lips. "Deal."

They heard movement on the stairs, and both sighed, as Holly started getting plates out of the cupboard.

"Has it been ten minutes yet?" Rob grunted from the kitchen doorway.

"I don't know Rob, check a clock." Holly had an exasperation in her voice that Gail had definitely heard in Mrs. Stewart's before.

Rob scowled and opened the oven door to look at the dish inside.

"If you let cold air in it will only take longer." Holly warned, and received a dirty look from her brother in response.

The oven timer went off moments after he closed the door again, and he grabbed some gloves to pull it out, before serving himself a plate of food and skulking off to the living room.

"Don't worry about serving us Rob, it's not like we cooked it or anything." Holly called after him.

Gail crept up behind her as she started to serve their plates. "You're surprisingly sexy when you're being your mother." She whispered.

Holly started slightly, before recovering and elbowing the blonde in the ribs. "Do you _want_ dinner?"

"Always." Gail grinned, taking their plates to the table.

They didn't talk much over dinner, mainly worried about what Rob may hear from the other room. But it was a surprisingly comfortable silence, filled with bashful glances and an occasional comment by Holly about how attractive Gail was when she ate.

When Rob left the kitchen after reappearing to put his dirty plate in the dishwasher, he glanced at them. "You two are being weird." He observed before disappearing off upstairs.

Holly shook her head as Gail burst out laughing. "Sometimes I wish he was my brother."

Holly screwed up her face. "Let's not think about that one too much."

"Yeah, maybe that was a little weird." Gail admitted, as her phone beeped. "Shit." She said as she glanced down at it.

"What's up?"

"Mom's demanding I come home." Gail replied dejectedly.

"Oh, that's annoying. I guess she hasn't seen you in a week though."

"Yeah, but trust her crappy timing to ask now." Gail sighed. "Sorry, I need to go or she'll blow up at me."

"It's ok." Holly assured her. "I can drop you off if you want?"

"It's fine, this time of day I'll be quicker on the subway."

"Ok, you grab your stuff and I'll clean this up."

"I am sorry." Gail repeated.

"It's ok, Gail." Holly smiled. "Get your stuff, I'll see you in a minute."

Four minutes later, Gail was stood at the open front door facing Holly. "Is there anyone out on the street?" She asked.

Holly peered over her shoulder. "No, why?"

Gail responded with a gentle kiss. "I'll text you later."

Holly grinned. "Ok. I'll see you soon. We'll work something out, I promise."

"I know." Gail responded, "Now shut the door or I'm going to keep wanting to kiss you. I can't walk away while you're stood right there."

Holly laughed. "Just that irresistible, am I?"

"Kind of." Gail shrugged. "Now shut it."

"Ok, ok." Holly grinned. "See you soon, Gail." And she shut the door.

**Pt. 8**

The next two weeks were nothing short of torture. They texted, they snuck in secret rendezvous in the hallway or, sometimes, when they were feeling more daring, in the bathroom, when Gail went to visit Alex, they even went out for coffee together, but any extended time together in a remotely private environment was impossible to find. It was driving Gail crazy. If they were ever actually going to get the chance to explore this thing between them they would need to find the opportunity to spend some actual time together; but that was seeming near impossible, and every near meeting was driving her more and more crazy for the beautiful, olive-skinned brunette, with no end in sight to the torturous secrecy and unfulfilling encounters.

Until Holly finally moved into her new apartment.

Gail was watching television with her father when her phone started ringing, Holly was due to move in tomorrow, but her mother had insisted they go shopping together, meaning she couldn't help with the move. She picked up the phone straight away. "Hey, you." She smiled, standing up to leave the room.

"Hey, guess what?"

"What?"

"Samantha can't move in until Monday."

Gail's brow furrowed. "So…?"

"So, I have the apartment completely to myself for two days."

Gail's ears perked up at that. "You mean…?"

"Do you have any plans for the weekend?"

"Not once this awful shopping trip with my mother is over, no."

"Good." Gail could almost hear Holly beaming through the phone. "I'll text you once my family have left."

"I'll be there as soon as I can."

"I can't wait."

"Me neither."

There were a few moments of silence, neither really knowing what to say.

"So I'll see you tomorrow afternoon?" Holly asked eventually.

"Definitely."

"Good. I should… go."

"Yeah, me too. I'll see you tomorrow."

"See you tomorrow." Holly repeated her.

"Holly?"

"Yes?"

"I really can't wait."

"I know. I can't either."

"Good. See you soon."

"Bye, Gail."

~x~

Holly texted Gail at 5.33pm to let her know her family had finally gone home. Gail was outside her door at 5.41. Bored of waiting for Holly's message, Gail had headed to a coffee shop near her apartment to wait over an hour ago, in order to make sure she was there as soon after Holly's text as was possible.

Holly had barely opened the door when Gail launched herself at her, hands buried straight in her hair, lips on her mouth, legs wrapped tightly around her waist.

Holly almost stumbled over backwards underneath the blonde, clearly not expecting the two weeks of longing looks and unsatisfying stolen kisses to manifest into such raw, physical desire. Gail felt the other woman get a firm hold of her thighs and pull her up once she steadied herself, stopping the blonde's slow slide down her body.

Gail eventually retracted her lips, and looked down at the usually taller brunette, a grin on her face the likes of which she'd never felt herself give before. "Hi."

"Hi there." Holly grinned back up at her. "Long time no see. Do you want the grand tour of the apartment?"

"Not even slightly." Gail said, a gentle forcefulness in her voice, before she placed her lips back upon Holly's. It was passion, the likes of which Gail had rarely experienced before. Holly was a talented kisser, she knew just how forceful to be without it being too much. The passion and desire that were building was even more impressive given how little they were able to touch each other in this athletically demanding – at least for Holly – position.

"We should slow down." Holly said eventually breaking their kiss.

"Why?"

"What?"

"I have thought about pretty much nothing but you for two weeks. We have this apartment to ourselves for two days, not even that, and I'm moving to another city in fourteen days. I really see no argument for slowing down at all. I just want you, so much."

Holly weighed up the other woman's points. "Are you sure you're ready?"

"Never been surer." Gail leant down to plant a kiss on Holly's lips, but the older woman only acquiesced for a few seconds, before pulling back. Gail gave her an inquisitive look.

"I need to put you down if I'm going to be using my arms at some point in the next hour, which I'm guessing I probably will." Holly explained.

"You're meant to carry me to your bed." Gail explained.

Holly snorted, but Gail gave her a serious look. "Fine." Holly sighed, and started walking towards her bedroom. "You know, you seem to have a thing about trying to be taller than me when we're kissing. You are here, and you were on my kitchen work top too. Do you have a complex or something?" She mused as she shuffled towards her door. It wasn't as elegant as Holly was sure as it was meant to be look, but it wasn't like Gail was significantly smaller than her. Truth be told, she was fairly impressed with herself.

"I don't know, I hadn't thought about it that way. I guess I do kind of like looking down at you when we kiss."

"Ah, good thing I'm not a stickler about being a top then."

Gail looked down at her, confusion on her face.

"Never mind, I'll introduce lesbian language to you another time." Holly kicked the door open, and shuffled over to the bed.

"Gail?" The blonde looked at her, questioningly. "Kiss me."

Gail did as she was told, and Holly lowered her down to the bed, not breaking their embrace. No longer forced to have her hands placed underneath the other woman's thighs, Holly ran her fingers up Gail's body to cup her face, rooting them as their lips and tongues melded into each other.

Holly suddenly broke their kiss, pulling up to look around the room.

Gail reached up to cup the other woman's cheek, a confused expression forming on her flushed cheeks and swollen lips. "What's up?" She asked softly. "Is something wrong, was I too forward?"

Holly looked down and met the blonde's eyes, darkened significantly from their usual penetrating blue. She smiled gently. "No, it's not you, it's just… hang on." She jumped up off the bed, provoking Gail's lips to form a slight pout as she pushed herself up onto her elbows to watch the older girl's actions.

Holly flicked on the light on her bedside table, then pulled closed the drapes and switched off the main light, before hurriedly exiting the room. Gail heard a drawer open and close from the kitchen, and then Holly re-emerged, holding some matches and a single candle, which she placed on her dresser and lit, before turning on some soft music. She turned around to face the blonde, a slightly more relaxed expression adorning her face.

Gail just smirked at her.

"What?" Holly asked.

"What was that?"

"It just… wasn't very romantic in here, and I realised that if we're going to do… this, I wanted it to be nice, and romantic."

Gail's smirk quivered slightly as she tried to supress a genuine, heartfelt smile. "You're a sap."

"You've said that already."

"Well you are."

Holly walked over to the bed, leaning her knees against the mattress, but not quite yet clambering on to it. "Is that going to be a problem?"

Gail looked at the woman in front of her, taking her in properly for the first time since she'd arrived. She was wearing a slouchy blue t-shirt that hung from her curves, through which she could just about see the outline of a dark bra, and tight jeans which perfectly showcased her hips. It should have been a very casual outfit, but it just made her look so effortlessly sexy. "I don't think so." Gail murmured, tongue darting out to lick her lips.

Holly smiled at the obvious perusal of her body and climbed back on to the bed. "Are you sure you're ready to do this?" She asked, as she straddled Gail's thighs.

Gail considered admitting to the number of times she had touched herself thinking of Holly already that week, but thought better of it. "I'm sure."

Holly inspected her features carefully. "Say if you decide otherwise, promise me that. I won't mind."

"You probably will, but I promise." Gail smiled, sitting up to trap Holly's lips in a deep kiss, losing her hands in soft long brown hair.

Gail soon felt hands tracing the skin of her lower back, and she broke their kiss to pull her tank top off over her head, indicating for Holly to do the same before they rejoined lips and the task would become impossible again.

As their kiss became increasingly heated, Holly's fingers began exploring a pale stomach, gaining increasingly in confidence as they became more and more lost in each other, losing, to what had seemed to Gail, to be her earlier trepidation. The blonde smiled into their kiss involuntarily at the realisation of what was happening to the other woman.

Gail's hands ran over the soft skin of Holly's back with increasing speed and need as attention was moved from her lips to her neck, where her skin was being nipped, licked and sucked with a care and devotion that sent blood straight to her clit.

She was so engulfed in the pleasure of the sensations that she didn't notice Holly's hands' disappearance from her stomach until she felt a bra strap slip over her shoulder, and a rush of cold air on her nipple as a bra cup was pulled down to expose her right breast. The cold air, however, was immediately blocked by a hand, stroking her erect.

Feeling like she was falling behind in giving pleasure, Gail reached up to the back of Holly's bra and fiddled with the clasp. After a minute or so of ineffective fumbling, Holly's hand, the one not gently fondling a pale breast, slipped behind her back and flicked it open, before returning to its prior position on Gail's cheek.

"Well that was embarrassing." Gail whispered, unable to speak normally while Holly's hands and tongue continued to devote their attention to stimulating every nerve in her body.

"We've all been there." Holly murmured into her neck, as she slipped Gail's other bra strap down her shoulder and exposed her left breast to the attentions of her hand.

Gail moaned as her arousal increased to levels it had rarely reached before. However, increasingly aware that she was yet to attempt to evoke the pleasure in her partner that she herself was receiving, she slipped her hands under the loose cups of Holly's own bra, pinching lightly the already hardened nipples.

Gail immediately felt a momentary stilling in Holly's movements, and then hands disappeared from her breasts to undo the clasp of her own bra, before Gail was pushed gently on to her back. Holly slipped off her own opened bra before lowering herself back down on top of the blonde, pressing their chests together. Gail had not expected the feeling of another woman's hardened nipples brushing against hers to feel as good as it did, and pulled Holly's mouth to hers, moaning into it.

She could feel Holly shuffling on top of her, and in between the pleasure and arousal, a quick thought of bewilderment flashed through her mind. That was quickly settled however when Holly's thigh ground into her crotch. Her hands slipped down instinctively to grab the other woman's ass, pulling them together with more force, increasing the pressure against her own clit whilst pulling Holly onto her own thigh. After a few minutes of rocking against one another, the combined waves of pleasure coming from her breasts, her mouth and her clit forced her to break their kiss, pushing her head back into the mattress to gasp loudly.

Holly, not one to miss an opportunity, slipped down her body to capture a pert, pink nipple between her lips, evoking a loud, gratified moan from the woman under her. She slipped her hands between them to start undoing Gail's flies while her lips continued to focus on maintaining the steady stream of gasped swear words now leaving Gail's mouth. She bit down softly, before quickly running the very tip of her tongue over the peak of the straining nipple over and over, then moving to the other breast when Gail gasped out her name.

Gail managed to lift her head long enough to glance down at the other woman, and the visual of the object of her desire sucking upon her breast sent waves of bliss coursing through her body. Her aching clit needed attention, soon, and she slipped a hand down to her panties, surprised to find her flies already undone. She stroked herself through the soft material of her underwear, then realised that it wasn't her own sex she really wanted beneath her fingers.

She grabbed Holly's face, pulling it up to kiss her, then slid her hand down the other woman's chest and into her underwear, unobstructed by her also opened flies. Holly shuddered and stilled over her.

"Gail." She gasped.

Gail traced the soaked folds a couple of times, trying to map out the unfamiliar landscape with the tips of her fingers. She scrunched her face up in concentration, comparing what she discovered to what she felt when she touched herself, grateful that Holly seemed so lost in the sensations that she didn't appear to be noticing Gail's thoroughly unerotic concentration face. It didn't take her long to identify her clit, from its hard roundness but also the loud moans above her whenever she touched it. She concentrated her attentions there, rubbing it back and forth, then in circular movements as she saw Holly's arms start to shake.

Sensing the brunette may be about to collapse on top of her, Gail paused to flip her onto her back, taking a moment to slip out of her jeans as she positioned herself over the other woman. Holly looked up at her with dark eyes, reaching up to lightly circle her nipples with her fingers, and Gail pushed her own hand back into her pants, to continue pushing the brunette closer and closer to the edge. She traced kisses along the other woman's collar as she increased the pressure to the other woman's sex.

After a while, she heard Holly attempt to say something, but was unable to properly distinguish her words from her moans. She slowed to listen carefully to the brunette's exclamations, eventually making out an "inside, please, God" in between the groans of pleasure.

Gail complied, slipping down to circle her entrance, before pushing in her finger to the first knuckle, then slowly deeper until she couldn't enter any further. She felt Holly's breathing halt briefly as she entered, then release. She pulled out and repeated the action.

"Another one, shit, another finger." Holly gasped.

Gail entered with another finger, slowly, attempting as much as she could to ensure Holly was accommodating her painlessly, then once she felt comfortable she was evoking pleasure and not pain, began to pump steadily.

Her face took on that expression of heavy concentration once again as she considered how best to stimulate Holly's clit from her current position. She tried to rub with her thumb but her fingers stilled as she tried to concentrate on the dual movements, so she gave up and pushed her palm to cup the other woman hard instead, vowing to work out later how to best co-ordinate her digits later on.

Holly moaned her name.

"More?" Gail asked.

Holly just shook her head. "No, shit, this is perfect. Fuck, Gail, you're perfect." Gail lowered herself to kiss Holly deeply at that, needing to feel Holly under her tongue. She felt Holly's movements around her nipple slow, then stop completely, before the muscles around her fingers started to clench hard and the brunette pulled back from the kiss to moan loudly.

"Gail, yes! God, Gail!" Holly was letting out a hoarse shout more than a moan now, and Gail continued to move her hand, kissing under Holly's jaw until she relaxed under her touch.

Gail knew she could pull out now, but she wanted to try something. Placing a light kiss on Holly's lips as her breathing started to slow again, she kissed down the other woman's neck, and took her nipple between her lips. She relished in the unfamiliar feeling, sucking briefly before forcing herself to continue her journey, kissing over the other woman's stomach.

"What are you…?" Holly breathed, peering down at the top of the blonde's head. Gail looked up, eyes sparkling, as she journeyed further southwards, pushing Holly's jeans and underwear down her legs. "Oh, Gail, you don't have to…"

She was cut off however, by Gail's tongue on her now extremely sensitive nub. Holly's hips bucked up into her face, and Gail wrapped her arm around the other woman's thigh as she revelled in the sweet, musky taste of Holly's sex.

As her fingers resumed pumping, she licked, gently, then hard, then sucked, then resumed the quick and light movements which seemed to get the other woman losing the most control. She felt hands in her hair, and grinned into Holly's folds, continuing her lapping until the now somewhat familiar clenching reoccurred, and she felt the other woman collapse underneath her. She looked up at her, just about seeing her closed eyes and lip caught between her teeth, over breasts and stomach, pushed up as she arched her back.

She moved to kiss along quivering thighs, then back up her chest to her lips. Holly groaned underneath her, wrapping her arms around the pale woman's back to hold them so close together that were it not for the sharp contrast in their skin tones you would not be able to tell where one woman ended and the other began.

Eventually Holly rolled them over, kicking her jeans and panties off from where they had gathered at her ankles, and pulling Gail's panties down, leaving them both completely naked for the first time. She pushed her thigh into Gail's newly exposed crotch, evoking a loud gasp from Gail, who tried to slip a hand down to touch Holly in response. Holly caught her on the way down, and clasped the fingers between her own.

"No." She warned. "You've done your bit, perfectly. Twice. It's my turn." She smiled, and pushed her thigh hard against her once again. Gail just fell back, involuntary gasps escaping her lips and eyes fluttering shut. As Holly continued her grinding, slipping a hand in between them to heighten the sensations she was causing, Gail opened her eyes once again. The sight of Holly riding her; perfect round, perky breasts bouncing gently, nearly pushed her over the edge there and then.

Holly seemed to sense she was near, because she then slipped down her body to kiss behind her knees and up the sensitive insides of her thighs, maintaining her hold of Gail's hand as she moved positions. Gail felt a momentarily sense of loss at the lack of pressure to where she needed it most, but it was soon replaced by Holly's tongue. She felt Holly trace around her entrance, then flatten her tongue and run it all over her sex. Gail squirmed under her, and Holly started sucking lightly, then harder on her clit.

Gail cried out, and looked down her body. She caught Holly's eye midway through her ministrations, and squeezed her hand to let her know she was near. Holly squeezed back, and alternated her hard sucking with powerful swipes of her tongue. Waves of ecstasy shot about through her body and she felt her legs tighten around Holly's head with such strength it must have been painful, but Holly kept up her efforts, until Gail had stopped calling out her name and her muscles finally relaxed.

Holly crept up her body, bringing their clasped hands to her lips and kissing them as she slid up the bed. She collapsed on her back next to the blonde, slipping her arm underneath the other woman's head and wrapping it around her shoulders. Gail rolled over, placing her check upon Holly's shoulder, and felt the other woman place a kiss to the top of her head in response.

"Wow." Gail breathed, eventually, stroking absent circles over Holly's toned abdomen.

"Wow." Holly repeated in agreement.

~x~

"So, any regrets?" Holly asked.

Gail tilted her head to look at the brunette incredulously. "After that? No chance."

"And you've never slept with a woman before?"

"Nope."

"Wow. I mean, you were… it was really, really good."

Gail couldn't help the slightly smug grin from taking over her features. "I did quite a bit of research. But I kind of mostly just want with whatever felt right."

"Well it felt really right. But I was kind of surprised you… did me first. I don't know, I figured because it was your first time…" Holly trailed off, not really sure whether she was offending the blonde or not.

"Honestly, me too. But then you were on top of me, and doing stuff and it was so _hot_ I just wanted to touch you. So I did."

Holly smiled affectionately. "I can't believe you're going in two weeks." She sighed.

Gail's fingers stilled suddenly. Holly glanced down at them, but said nothing, as Gail rolled over onto her front, her face now in line with the brunette's.

"What did… what are… did you…?" She sighed, burying her head in the sheets for a moment, before lifting her head to look at the other woman once again. "I don't know how to ask this without seeming needy?"

"Holly ran her fingers over Gail's pale naked back softly. "Just ask. I won't think you're being needy."

"What's going to happen, with us, when I go? What is this? Is it just a fling? Because I know we said we'd just see what happened, but _that_, didn't feel like a fling, that felt like… something big."

Holly looked thoughtful for a few moments. "I don't know. I never wanted a fling with you, well, not really with anybody, but definitely not with you. But you're going to university and that makes things complicated."

"Because of the distance?"

"Partly, but it's only an hour away, the distance is manageable. Mainly because College is amazing, and you are going to have such a great time, you can go and be who you want to be and do what you want to do and you'll discover so much about yourself. I really don't want to hold you back from anything, and I would never intentionally do that, at all, not for a moment, but being in College with a twenty-two year old to think about and devote time to, it changes things. You're eighteen, and you should get the chance to just _be_ eighteen."

"I'm nineteen in November." Gail pointed out.

"Even better; nineteen is great. Nineteen is when you go and drink in clubs for the first time and get felt up by strangers and make out with people you regret ever touching…"

"We both know I've done that already." Gail interjected.

Holly laughs softly. "Ok, true. I just mean, the next year, no, the next four years, could be anything you want them to be, and I'm concerned if you go into them with me, with us, as whatever we are, you're going to start to feel like I'm a burden to you."

Gail considered her for a moment. "Ok. I see your points. But think of it this way, whether we are together or not at the beginning of September; I will be thinking about you. And if what you're trying to say is that you're worried I'll resent you because I'll want to sleep around, that's never going to happen."

"It's not just sex, it's… it's hard to explain. But I'm twenty two, and twenty two year olds are very different to eighteen year olds, in so many ways, and I'm worried if we're together, you're going to skip being nineteen, or twenty years old and jump to being twenty two, or at least feeling like you have to act like you're twenty two. And twenty two is great; I love twenty two. But I wouldn't give up the years in between for anything." Holly paused to let Gail think through her words. "And that's not even starting on the fact that we would have only been together for a month – and not really that because we've barely seen each other for the past two weeks – before you left, and only really been friends a little while longer than that, it's not a very strong foundation for a long distance relationship."

Gail scrunched up her face in thought. "I don't know. It sounds to me like you're overthinking it."

"Well, I am." Holly conceded. "But that's not always a bad thing."

"Ok. Well. Can I ask you a question?"

"Always."

"If you don't like flings, but you think we shouldn't be together when I leave, why did you sleep with me? Was it because I pressured you?"

"No, Gail, absolutely not. You didn't pressure me into anything I didn't want to do." Holly says firmly, running her hand through the other woman's blonde hair. "I guess it was because I really, really like you, and I've struggled to stop thinking about you, I just… I liked you, _like _you so much that the idea of being with you outweighed all the arguments for not being with you. I'd rather be with you, including sex, for two weeks than not at all."

"Ok, well to me it seems that if you like me _that much_, and I like you that much, which I do, because I've liked you so much for so long that I really don't think I want it all to culminate in a two week fling, then we should be staying together."

Holly sighed. "I do like you that much, I really, really do. And I would love for us to stay together, to be a thing, like 'Holly and Gail', but I'm just worried that it's not the best thing for you."

"And what about the best thing for you?"

"How do you mean?"

"I mean, are you worried I'll hurt you; that I'll cheat on you because I'm younger and I'm going to college, or that I'll be living a life too immature for you to be involved in."

Holly looked slightly surprised. "What? No, Gail, not for a moment."

"Because I know you caught me doing a stupid thing at your party, but I was only doing that with him because I was sad that I couldn't be doing it with you. I don't just fool around with people at parties. I would never, ever do what Ellie did. The thought of hurting you like that makes me sick."

"No, I never thought you'd do that. I know you're mature Gail, but I also wouldn't get mad at you for living like you're a college student, as long as you're not sleeping around. And can we stop talking about the Ethan thing; I don't hold it against you. For one thing he shouldn't have taken advantage of you like that in the first place, knowing how drunk you were. But even ignoring that, I don't hold it against you at all, not as your friend, not as your best friend's older sister, certainly not as your… whatever we are here."

"Sexual partners." Gail suggested. "That's what doctors would call us, and you are going to be a doctor."

"Ok, yeah, we can call it that." Holly laughs. "But that raises more issues; me being in med school. You know that I'm not just going to be your average twenty two year old sexual partner, I'm going to be a very busy, stressed out, twenty two year old sexual partner? That's not going to be easy for you either."

Gail laid her head down on her arms, deep in thought for a few minutes. "Holly, you're overthinking this too much. Worse, you're only over thinking how _I'm _going to feel about things. I know I don't have your wordly wisdom, and I'm only eighteen, but I know what I want, and what I want is you. It's always been you, above everything. I even thought about you once when I was having sex with Andrew, and I know that's really weird to admit, but that's how much you've always been what I wanted."

"Ok, but…" Holly tried to interrupt her, but Gail reached up to put a hand over her mouth.

"This is my turn to talk." Gail said sternly. "So, you're worried you're going to be stressed and not make time for me? But you're also worried you're going to be overbearing and be a burden on me? Well, guess what? That doesn't work. You can't be overbearing and absent at the same time. If you can't make time for me, I'm not going to take it personally. Because like you say, I'll be living my own life. Sure, if we have to go weeks and weeks without seeing each other it's going to be tough, but I never stopped liking you even when I'd only see you for a few days every holiday, so I know I'm not going to stop liking you after a few weeks. That's just long distance, Holly, people do long distance all the time, and the distance for us isn't even that long."

Holly nodded slowly, Gail's hand still over her mouth.

"And I know, we won't have been together long when I go, but I think we like each other enough to make up for that. The way I see it, what this all boils down to is trust. You promise to not get mad at me if I get raging drunk at a frat party as long as I'm celibate, and to make time for me when you are able to, and to be faithful. And I trust you to do those things. I promise to not get too mad at you if you can't make time for me when you're really busy, and to give up some, but not all of the college frat parties to make time for you, and to stay faithful. And you trust me to do those things."

"I do trust you, Gail."

"Good. Then on your issue regarding my needing to be an eighteen year old. I will; I will be young, because like we've already discussed, you're not _going _to be able to be around all the time. I can see where you're coming from, and the fact that you've thought about it means so much, but at the same time, you're overthinking it."

Holly sighed. "It won't be easy." She conceded, eventually.

"That doesn't mean it's not worth trying." Gail argued.

Holly was silent for a few moments longer. "Ok... Ok, you're right, I do like you too much to not give us a go."

Gail could not have kept her smile down if she tried. She pressed her lips to Holly's and revelled in their softness, the reassurance they provided. "Good. Ok. And just so you know, this is just the first in a long line of arguments in which I'm going to prove I'm right. Well second, because I've had to talk you into this twice now."

"I am into this, I just, I like to make sure my decisions are sound, and that means going over every single possibility including the negative ones, but don't for a moment think I don't want this, because I do." Holly smiled. "We should write down those promises though, so we don't forget."

"You're making them sound like marital vows."

Holly shrugged, reaching over for a pad of paper, and rolling on to her front next to Gail to start writing. She is only two words in when the blonde snatches the pen from her hands and rips the paper out. "Your handwriting is horrific." She says in disgust.

Holly cocks an eyebrow as Gail starts to write on the new sheet.

_Holly- promises to not get mad at Gail for doing things that undergraduates do, eg. getting off her tits at massive frat parties, and to make time for Gail in between her stupidly busy (but important) days of learning how to be the world's dorkiest Doctor. She also promises to be faithful._

_Gail- promises to not get mad at Holly for being really busy when she has loads of Doctor-y work to do, and to every so often give up one of the afforementioned frat parties and spend time with Holly instead. Also promises to be faithful._

_Both also promise to trust each other to keep their promises._

"There, it's all in writing now. No going back." Gail smiled contentedly.

"Very official. It's a shame you misspelt 'aforementioned', though." Holly grinned, leaning over to plant a gentle kiss on the other woman's cheek.

"Shut up. Hey, do you think we should make this a blood oath?"

"Not today, too much mess." Holly replied, rolling onto her back. "Urgh, I think I'm getting a headache from all this processing."

Gail shuffled over to cuddle into her side. "Half an hour nap then go for round two?"

Holly wrapped her arms around the other woman, holding her close. "You read my mind."

Gail closed her eyes, before a thought struck her, and they flashed open once more. "Oh, by the way, when you were rambling on about how we were doomed for failure a couple of minutes ago… ow?!" She cut off her own sentence with an exclamation of pain as Holly pinched her shoulder lightly.

"I was not saying we were doomed for failure." Holly retorts.

"Whatever, when you were being all rambly and pessimistic, you called us 'Holly and Gail', but I just wanted you to know, before that becomes a thing, that it's 'Gail and Holly'."

"Don't I get a say in this?" Holly asked.

"Unfortunately you getting a say is not in our weird long distance rules contract, so no."

"You're a dork." Holly teased.

"Actually, you are, it's in the contract."

"The contract said I was training to _become _the world's dorkiest doctor, not that I already was one."

"The fact that you already are a dork was implied." Gail argued.

"Go to sleep, Gail." Holly smiled.

Gail didn't reply, just wrapped herself tighter around the other woman's body, as her eyes fluttered shut again, this time staying that way.

**Pt.9/Epilogue**

"How do you have _so many _black clothes?" Holly asked as she folded another of Gail's dark t-shirts and placed it carefully in the open suitcase on the blonde's bed.

"You can't go wrong with black, Holly." Gail grabbed a couple of sweaters from her closet and threw them unceremoniously onto the crumpled up pile of clothes on her bed.

Holly picked up one of the sweaters and folded it, placing it next to the t-shirt in the suitcase. "I know, but this much is kind of morbid."

"Well to be fair, _I _am kind of morbid."

"You try to be morbid, really you're just a pussy cat." Holly retorted. The next sweater was thrown at her head. She pulled it off, scowling. "Keep doing that and I'll stop helping."

"It's ok, you're safe, I think I've got everything I need out of here." Gail smiled sweetly, closing the closet.

"Oh good, so you'll help me fold now then?"

"Why are you bothering to fold them? Just chuck them in."

Holly rolled her eyes, and moved to pick up another sweater, but Gail pulled her into her arms before she could reach it. Gail's arms wrapped tightly around her waist while Holly's settled around her shoulders.

"We're not going to get much packing done like this." Holly pointed out.

"Screw packing." Gail murmured. "It's nearly four o'clock."

Holly sighed. "Oh."

"Yep."

"I guess I should get my stuff together then."

"In a minute." Gail's hold on the other woman tightened even more, if possible.

"Are you going to be ok finishing this off by yourself?" Holly asked.

"Yeah, we've done most of it."

They stood in silence for a few moments, before Gail turned her head, pressing a kiss to the other woman's jaw. Holly twisted to meet her with her lips. Neither of them attempted to deepen it, both simply revelling in the softness and comfort of feeling the other against them.

"I'm going to miss you so much." Gail whispered when they pulled back.

"I'm coming to visit you in three weeks." Holly smiled.

"Our relationship will be almost twice as old by then as it is now." Gail mused.

Holly nodded. "Yep, well, we knew we weren't exactly being very conventional about this."

"Why can't you drive me there?" Gail asked. They'd discussed this three times already.

"Because you really don't want to be the girl who gets dropped off at University by their twenty two year old sexual partner. It's a little possessive. And I'm meant to be keeping out of your college life, remember?"

Gail groaned. "I can't believe it's tomorrow already."

Holly leaned back and looked at her. "Hey," She smiled. "Don't be like that, it's university, you're going to have _such _a good time. I'm jealous, really, first year of undergrad is amazing."

"I know. It just sucks that I have to go when we're just starting out."

"Well if you will decide to tell me how you feel less than a month before you leave…" Holly teased.

"At least I _did _tell you. I didn't see you making any moves on me."

"What, admit to fancying my younger sister's straight best friend? I would never have done that."

"Stop teasing me then." Gail pouted.

Holly smiled gently. "Sorry. I'm very glad you did eventually pluck up the courage to kiss me soberly, you know that?"

"Yeah." Gail breathed in, revelling in Holly's mild citrusy scent. "I'm glad I did too."

"Good." Holly leant in for a chaste kiss, then broke their embrace. "I need to finish getting dressed again, you probably should too if your dad's coming home soon." She indicated to Gail's legs, which were completely bare apart from a pair of thin, light blue panties. "Where did you throw my bra?"

"Not telling." Gail grinned, as she pulled on a pair of shorts.

Holly arched an eyebrow. "Is this one of those creepy things where you steal my underwear and take it away with you?"

"Ew, no." Gail grimaced. "It's just your t-shirt is pretty see through and I'm enjoying the view." She grinned.

"Yeah, well I don't think everyone on the subway will feel the same way."

"Should have driven here then."

"Alex has the car. And I couldn't exactly ask her for a lift since _someone _told her you're shopping with your mother today."

"Well _someone else _told me she wanted to have lunch, although I think she just wanted to get me into bed." Gail retorted, eyes narrowed.

"We did have lunch. And if I remember correctly, it was _you_ who dragged _me_ into bed." Holly smirked, eyes sparkling. "Have you decided what you want to do, about the Alex situation?"

"Why do I have to decide? She's your sister, she's going to be pissed at both of us." Gail whined.

"Because you've been her best friend since you were ten; your relationship is important to you. She's only recently started to even tolerate me as a sister; if she refuses to talk to me it'll just be like going back to when we were teenagers, and I can deal with that." Holly suggested.

Gail groaned. "She's going to kill me. Literally murder me in my sleep."

"We don't have to tell her." Holly suggested.

"Maybe… we should wait. Until Christmas, or something. Until we know we can do this. I mean, it's going to be hard enough without having to factor Alex in just yet. If you don't mind?"

"Of course I don't mind." Holly smiled. "As long as you tell me where my bra is."

Gail let out a melodramatic sigh. "I think it went under my desk."

Holly leant over to retrieve her underwear, unintentionally giving Gail a much appreciated view as her low scoop-neck t-shirt hung down from her body. But then Holly lifted off her tee anyway to put her bra on and the view Gail got from leering down her top paled in comparison.

"My bag is downstairs." Holly pointed out.

"Right, yeah. Ok. We should go downstairs then, I guess." Gail replied, a slightly glazed over expression on her face as her mind stayed stuck on the rather wonderful image it had just captured of Holly's bare chest.

"Come on then, perv." Holly giggled, nudging the blonde out of the door and down the stairs.

~x~

"I'll call you tomorrow evening." Gail repeated for the fifth time, as they stood on her door step, following one of their most intense make outs to date.

"You don't have to. You'll have mixers and stuff to go to, you don't need to call me just because you feel you should."

"I'll call you because I'll want to call you." Gail smiled. "Plus mixers mean people, and people are annoying, so I'll probably have loads to bitch to you about."

"It's good that you're going into this with an open mind." Holly teased. "You'll love it, you will. I can't wait to hear about how much you'll love it. I mean, it can be hard, to begin with, for everyone. And if you are struggling, I want to hear about that too; you can tell me, I'll understand. But I really just… I'm so excited for you."

"Sometimes I feel like you're living life vicariously through me."

"Just a tiny bit." Holly conceded. "I should get going, your mom will be home soon."

"Wait, Holly just one more thing. When people ask, you know, if I'm seeing someone, I'll tell them I have a girlfriend, right? That's what you are, my girlfriend?"

"The girl who is sleeping with you, promised to be faithful when we're living an hour apart and is driving down just to spend a weekend with you in three weeks time? Yeah, I'd say you could probably call me your girlfriend." Holly grinned.

"Good." Gail tried to be nonchalant, but couldn't help herself from beaming like a child on Christmas morning. "I just had to clarify, you know, for anyone who asked."

Holly reached up to rest her hand over Gail's cheek as she leant in for a kiss. "Makes sense. For the people who ask."

"Exactly." Gail smiled, kissing her again.

"Ok, well then,_ girlfriend_. I'm going to have to request that you shut the front door or I'll never leave." Holly whispered into her lips.

"Am I that irresistible?" Gail grinned.

"You have no idea."

Gail kissed her one, final time, before stepping back. "Wow, this is really hard."

"I know." Holly picked up her bag. "Ok, right. Actually, I have one more thing to say."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." Holly looked up at her, her expression deadly serious with the slightest hint of hopefulness. "I know when we first discussed us doing this I was kind of… pessimistic, about our chances. But these past two weeks have been amazing, and we are good together, so good together, and I think we can do this. I think we can make this work. I genuinely do, and I wanted you to know that because I haven't been very optimistic about us before, but I am. And I just needed you to know that."

Gail's face broke out into an enormous smile. "I think we can do it too, Holly."

"Ok, good. Then shut the door, because that was a good place to end it, today. Don't say anything more, let's just let that be the final thing we say. But shut the door or I'll stand here forever just looking at you in silence."

Gail nodded, grinning, and stepped back. She took one last moment to take Holly in, everything about her, then slowly, torturously, closed the door, hearing steps outside as the brunette finally walked away from her house. She leant back on the door, her heart finally feeling whole as that one thing that had been hovering over it, the tiny, niggling idea that Holly didn't believe in them; the idea Gail hadn't even realised had been casting a tiny shadow over her jubilation for the past two weeks lifted. Holly believed they would make it, Holly believed they would work.

And as it turned out, they did.

* * *

_Bahaa, sorry that was such a cheesy final line, but I haven't actually wrapped up a story in years so I guess I didn't really know how to finish it._

_Thank you for reading, and being so lovely, here and on tumblr (If you don't already follow me on tumblr, but want to, my username is largechildorsmalladult, or there is a link on my ff profile), you really have made me very, very cheerful this past day._

_Also a quick sorry this section took so long to get published, I decided at the last minute to rewrite part of it because it wasn't quite working for me, and I really wanted this final section to work for you guys._

_Thank you again, so, so much._

_-B_


	4. Prompt: Valentine's Day

Both Holly and Gail decide to surprise the other by visiting for valentine's day but obviously miss seeing each other. They end up meeting up halfway at a little diner and spend the night at a cheesy motel with themed honeymoon rooms.

Twenty minutes into this journey and Gail was already bored out of her mind. She'd been so excited, so pre-occupied with trying to remember her lingerie and her… well, mainly just her lingerie, but lingerie was important, and it was so pre-occupying she had forgotten how incredibly _dull _this one hour, fifteen minute train journey could be. And so she had nothing with her to distract herself from the mind numbing boredom. Nothing but lingerie.

She unlocked her phone, re-reading for the fiftieth time the last message from her girlfriend an hour and a half previously. She was at a study group, as she was every Tuesday and Thursday, and Holly's peers had long since banned her from checking her phone during their study time.

Not that Holly would be expecting Gail to engage in much conversation any way, given that as far as she knew Gail wasn't due to finish her shift at the coffee shop for another two hours.

This was it; their first holiday kept apart by their clashing schedules. She had work, Holly had to study. And it wasn't even a real holiday, they'd both agreed on that one. Valentine's day was not something they wantedto make a big deal about, even if they could spend it together, and especially when it was on a Thursday and they were going to be seeing each other at the weekend anyway. So they had decided not to be too upset about it. If they had to be apart, they would be apart.

Except that Gail's supervisor had let her go home half way through her shift, and they no longer _had _to be apart.

It had only taken half an hour of sitting in her dorm room with nothing to do, for Gail to decide that she needed to get the next train to Toronto.

Her phone lit up in her hands, Holly's name flashing across the screen.

Gail smiled and brought it to her ear. "Hey."

"Are you on a Train to Toronto?"

Gail frowned at her girlfriend's unusual skipping over of greetings. "Happy Valentines to you too, nerd."

"Sorry, happy Valentines. Are you? On the train?"

"Would it be a problem if I was?" Gail asked, defensively.

"No. Well, yes, but no. It's just I'm not in the city."

"Where are you? Don't tell me you have two out of town girlfriends and you're with the other one this year."

"No, no, I'm outside your dorm room." Gail heard the other girl sigh into the phone.

"What are you doing there?"

"I wanted to surprise you when you got home from work. I was waiting outside your door and one of the girls on your corridor walked by and said she thought you'd already left for Toronto for the weekend."

"Oh. Yeah, I have, I finished work early and I figured I could skip class tomorrow and come up early."

"Ah."

"Yeah."

"Sorry, I should have told you I was planning on coming to Hamilton, instead of trying to surprise you, I know you hate surprises."

"Yeah, kind of. But I wouldn't have hated that, you know, if it had worked." Gail sighed, disappointed and slightly confuse "Can you drive back to Toronto?"

Gail heard Holly exhale slowly. "I told Sam she could have the apartment to herself for the night, with her boyfriend."

"Oh."

"Yeah." Holly said slowly. "Can you get off the next stop and get the next train back here?"

"Yeah, I guess. I was kind of hoping to do something nice, though. I suppose now I've got myself set on actually doing Valentines day with you, the idea of eating the crap from my freezer then having sex on my shitty, small, uncomfortable dorm bed is a bit… I don't know…" Gail noticed a slight scowl flicked across the features of the man sat across the carriage from her.

"Underwhelming?"

Gail sighed. "Well, yeah. I mean, not because of you, obviously I'd take being somewhere shitty with you over somewhere nice without, any day. But I kind of had all these things I wanted to do, special things, because it's Valentines…"

"We can still do special things." Gail could almost hear Holly's reassuring smile through the phone, and cursed herself silently for her comparatively unaccommodating attitude towards their evening.

"I know, but my res always smells slightly of puke and it's not very romantic." She took a breath, hoping Holly will cut her off but apparently her girlfriend could sense there was more to be said. "I just… I wanted to do things certain things withyou, and they're the sort of things that we've already found really need more mattress space than my bed provides. One of them, especially." The surly man shots her a glare which Gail matched with equal venom.

Gail heard Holly swallow, loudly. "Oh right. Those kinds of special things."

"And there was going to be other stuff, like chocolates and wine and that, it wasn't just dirty, there was going to be the romantic crap too."

"I thought you hated Valentines day and all associated romantic crap?" Holly teased.

"I do. I just… the more I thought about it, the more it felt like if I was making this stupid surprise, last minute trip up to see you for Valentines, we should be doing it properly."

There was a pause on the other end of the line, and Gail waited nervously for a response.

"Where's your next stop?" Holly eventually asked.

"Uh, Oakville, I think, why?"

"Ok, get off there, I'll meet you at the station. I'm going to work out a surprise that won't fall through."

"Because that's working so well for you?" Gail teased, relieved that she no longer had to be discussing her slightly soppier desires.

"Stop that, or would you rather go to Toronto and have to spend Valentine's at your parents'?"

"Ok, yes, alright. Just hurry up, if you take too long I can't guarantee I won't take solace in someone else's arms- it's _cold_ out there."

"Then don't leave the station, smartass. I'm on my way to the car, I'll be there soon."

"You better." She pouted.

"I will."

…

Gail waited in Oakville station for 37 minutes before a familiar car turned into the car park. She was certain that she had never before in her life reached the velocity that carried her from the station entrance and through the passenger side door. The enthusiasm with which she threw her arms around her girlfriend's neck is returned with equal vigour, both women twisting awkwardly in their seats, with gear leavers and steering wheels digging uncomfortably into their limbs, not that they really cared.

They parted, eventually, breathless and flushed.

"Hi." Gail whispered.

"Hey you." Holly smiled back. "Happy Valentine's day."

Gail shut her eyes, forehead leant against the other woman's gently. "Happy Valentine's day." She repeated.

They allowed themselves this brief silent moment, just theirs, to breath each other in and feel each other under their hands once more. But then something else emerged at the forefront of Gail's mind.

"Fuck, it _smells_ in this car." She murmured.

"Sorry." Holly replied, letting out a long, resigned breath as she pulled back slightly, scrunching her nose slightly. "Rob's started driving and he and his friends aren't so up on their cleanliness."

"It's ok, as long as your surprise wasn't a camp out in your car?"

Holly laughed gently. "No, that wasn't my plan. I found us somewhere that should have enough room for you to get your Valentine's day kink on."

"It's not _that _kinky. It could be a lot kinkier."

Holly's eyebrows shot up so fast Gail's eyes could not follow their movement. "I… yeah, ok, that's true."

As she sat, amused, watching Holly squirm, Gail's stomach took the moment to growl loudly.

"Hungry?" Holly asked.

"Just a tad. Can we put off the dirty sex for half an hour or so?"

"I think it's relatively common to have dinner together before jumping into bed together on Valentine's day, Gail. Of course we can eat first. There was a diner back up the road we can try, I think most restaurants will be booked up."

"Greasy burger and fries on Valentine's day?"

"Sorry, it's not very romantic." Holly offered sincerely.

"What, no, it sounds perfect! It's amazing. You're amazing. Thank you." Gail leans in for one more heartfelt kiss before another loud grumble from a stomach pulled her away to allow her girlfriend to drive them in the direction of food.

…

The diner was, as Holly predicted, not hugely romantic. She tried ordering a shared milkshake, explaining that it may make it feel more like a date, but 90% of the milkshake ended up going up Gail's straw and Holly had to order another one for herself anyway.

Then there was the fact that watching Gail eat a burger was the most inelegant, unerotic thing Holly had ever seen. Or at least that's what Holly had told her at least seven times so far in the six months they had been together, so whilst she doesn't repeat the sentiment that night, Gail knew it was the case.

But Gail knew it didn't matter, because, as usual, when the burger was gone, and she was sat there, grinning at her girlfriend, crumbs and sauce smeared across her face, Holly just laughed at her, a faux desperation across her features. Then Holly leant over and wiped the smoky sauce from her cheek using her thumb, and held it out so Gail could suck the remnants of her dinner from the tip of her girlfriend's digit. As she always did.

"Dessert?" Gail asked, greedily eying the photo of the chocolate sundae on her menu.

"I kind of already prepared some dessert."

Gail looked up over the menu. "Holly, I really mean no harm by this, because believe me I _love_ eating you out, but I also love ice cream and they really are very different cravings that I need to satisfy separately."

Holly turned bright crimson, glancing around the diner nervously, spying any eavesdroppers in their conversation. "I didn't mean… Gail!" She batted the menu from her girlfriend's hands.

"What?!"

"I didn't mean me, Gail, I meant I got an actual, edible dessert."

"Oooh." The blonde replied slowly. Then her eyes lit up. "What did you get?!"

Holly pulled her phone from her pocket and loaded an image, before passing it over the table.

"Are those…?"

"Yep."

"From the place on Queen?"

"Yep."

"How many?"

"Twelve."

Gail's mouth fell open. "You got me donuts? For Valentine's day you brought me donuts, the best donuts in Toronto?"

Holly shifted nervously. "I know they're not exactly flowers or anything really romantic…"

"Are you kidding, these are… a million times better than flowers, these are better than jewelry, this is the best Valentine's day gift ever."

A slight blush rose up Holly's neck.

"Wow. I mean, wow." Gail looked at the girl sat opposite her, eyes deep and thankful and filled with genuine exhilaration and delight. "You are the best girlfriend, ever. The best person ever." She so nearly said it, then. That phrase that had been on the tip of her tongue for months. She was as close as she had ever been to the point where the thought of saying it didn't instill her with absolute terror, but lord be damned if she was going to say it for the first time on Valentine's day, and live with that little clichéd anniversary for the rest of her life.

She looked straight at Holly, deep into those dark, coffee brown eyes, determined to somehow express her appreciation of her girlfriend without too thorough an exposition of her innermost emotions. "You're incredible. Thank you, so much, for this, and for, well, you."

"_You're _incredible, you don't need to thank me for anything. I'm just a girl with access to good donuts."

"Well, thank you for letting me be the girl you buy the good donuts for." Gail, an earnest, playful smile playing at the corners of her mouth, then looked back at the phone, expression in place.

Holly sat back, watching her girlfriend gaze happily at her phone. It was apparently a few minutes before she became slightly puzzled by the degree of fascination the blonde had taken with the poorly lit photograph Holly had hurriedly snapped of her purchase.

"Are you still looking at those donuts?" She asked.

Gail glanced up at the dark eyes watching her. "Oh, no. The gallery app was on slideshow mode when you passed it to me, I'm re-watching those photos you sent me the other night."

Holly squawked slightly and grabbed the phone. "Gail! Someone could walk past and see!"

"So what? They're really hot photos, you shouldn't be ashamed of them!" Gail shrugged.

"It's got nothing to do with shame and you know that." Holly retorted. Gail just grinned.

"Sorry. You're just kind of ridiculously hot. I never really stood a chance of not watching them."

Holly just laughed slightly, an expression of equal parts embarrassment and pride sweeping across her face. She watched as Gail's eyes met her own, dropped down to her chest, then down to the menu, where they lingered. Lingered for a while.

Holly rolled her eyes. "You still want that Sundae don't you?"

"Yes." Gail whined.

"I bought you donuts." Holly sighed, but there was no genuine exasperation or disappointment in her tone.

"I know, and I love the donuts, and I want to eat them so badly. But I want the sundae too. Can't we just save the donuts as a snack for later? Eat them post-coitally? Or mid-coitally?"

"There are twelve donuts in that box; there's only a limited amount of food the human body can consume in one night."

"I know you're in Medical school and I'm just a lowly social science student but I think you're definitely wrong there, Holly."

Holly smirked. "Gail, your ability to consume food is spectacular, but even your appetite is not endless."

Gail gave her a stern look, surprising herself when she didn't burst into laughter.

It didn't take long for Holly to cave under her girlfriend's penetrating stare. "If you want the sundae, of course you can have the sundae. I don't mind."

Gail grinned and flagged down the passing waitress to order a coffee and her ice cream.

Holly raised an eyebrow inquisitively. "Coffee?"

"You yawned a couple of minutes ago."

"Did not!" Holly scoffed.

"Yeah you did, and I kind of have plans that would be somewhat hindered if you were to fall asleep soon."

"Believe me Gail, I'm not going to fall asleep any time soon."

"Yeah, well. I'm not taking any chances, so drink it."

"Feeling a little bossy tonight?" Holly cocked her eyebrow, her usually endearing, lopsided smile corrupted into a flirty, almost lascivious smirk. Not that Gail minded in the slightest. Cocky, alluring Holly was not the Holly she had fallen for when she was a smitten teenager. Aside from the occasional suggestive look that Gail couldn't even be sure she hadn't made up, it wasn't a side she had much, or any, exposure to prior to launching intrepidly into this relationship whose success at the time had seemed so inconceivable.

But as Gail had watched the doubt that had often pervaded Holly's expression during the early weeks and months of their relationship fall away, she had witnessed the emergence, slowly, and with increasing regularity, of her girlfriend's self-assured, coquettish side. And she enjoyed it. She liked the way Holly could rile her up and push her buttons, the way she could unashamedly express her lusting without making the blonde feel uncomfortable. That look of unconditional desire and adoration that lurked behind her expression, visible only in the darkness of her gentle eyes. The trust and devotion behind the salaciousness. It was passion, Gail had decided months before. Unbridled passion.

"Is that what you want?"

Holly flashed a wicked grin. "You know I don't mind."

"You say that, but I know you have your little kinks."

Holly glanced around the diner, dropping her voice. "You are hot when you top. But I couldn't ever choose either being top or bottom with you, not as an overall preference. I love riding you, and I love you riding me. I love coming under you but I love that sound you make when I…"

"Ok, shut up I get you!" Gail interrupted her, flushing. "I know you're trying to make me regret ordering that Sundae and not heading straight to your surprise dirty sex bed. But it's not working."

"Yes it is." Holly grinned, smugly.

Gail scowled at her. "Only because I'd just been looking at those photos of you. And you didn't even want me looking at them, so it's not because of you, really."

"Except that it absolutely is."

"No it's not." Gail pouted. "By the way, _why_ did you have a photo of those donuts on your phone?"

"Because I wanted to give you your present over dinner but you're not really supposed to bring outside food into restaurants. So I figured I'd show you a picture instead."

Gail's scowl lessened and a grin emerged. Because as sexy and alluring as Holly could be, there was no escaping the fact that underneath everything there was this off-beat, socially awkward weirdo she could not escape. "You're such a dork. What were they going to do, confiscate them?"

"Maybe. It's just not something you do, Gail!"

"We're in a seedy roadside diner in Oakville, I really don't think they would have cared."

"You don't know that."

Gail feels her features form a gentle scowl. "Dork."

"Yet you're still hanging around."

"You're a good lay." Gail reasons.

Holly grins widely. "I am an_ excellent_ lay." The waitress chooses that moment to turn up at their coffee and ice cream. She eyes them both nervously as she places down their food and starts to back away.

"Can we get the bill, please?" Holly asks before she can shuffle out of sight. There is a quick nod in response and then she is out of earshot once more.

"Good timing, nerd." Gail teases through a mouthful of ice cream.

The brunette leans over to catch a drip of ice cream that is rolling down the blonde's chin with a napkin.

"Thanks, beautiful." She retorts, leaning back into her chair in time to observe her girlfriend's mocking, scrunched-up expression.

…

Gail was giddy with excitement by the time they reached their motel room, an unsurprising fact given that on top of the sugar she had consumed in her milkshake and ice cream, she had insisted on eating a donut in the car on the way back. And giddy Gail was a handsy Gail.

It was apparently making Holly's attempts to open their motel room door somewhat difficult. Gail's hipbones dug into her ass, her breasts into her back, her pale cool hands stroked her stomach and her tongue traced her neck.

When she finally opened the door, what they found was somewhat surprising.

Gail scanned the rose petal covered bed, the heart-shaped neon light over its headboard, the fake electric candles, the 'Just Married' sign over the television. "Fuck Hols, I know you said you had a surprise, but..."

"I… I didn't do this!"

"Are you sure? The neon is very you…" Gail stood in the middle of the room, looking around eagerly at the tacky décor.

"I swear, I only asked for a last minute room for me and my partner!" Holly responded as she closed the door.

Gail looked amused. "Did they ask if you were coming from Niagara?"

"Yeah…"

"And you said…?"

"Well, yes, but I was coming from the direction of Niagara. I never thought… who elopes in Niagara and then spends the wedding night in Oakville?"

Gail giggled. "Well there must be some kind of market for it."

Holly glared around the room before spinning around towards the door. "I'll go ask for a normal room."

Gail grabbed her arm. "Don't worry about it. I bet the honeymoon rooms have the nicest beds. And it's not like you got me any flowers so the rose petals are a nice touch." She teased.

Holly poked her in the ribs. "You want flowers, eh Peck? I can start sending them to your dorm if you want. Weekly."

Gail pulled a face. "Ok, fine, you made the right call on the flowers. But this is fine, all I wanted for tonight was a double bed and look… double bed. And cable. And donuts."

"You're an easy lay, you know that?"

"Only for you." Gail replied, and immediately grimaced. "And _that _is the only sappy thing I will be saying this evening."

Holly wrapped her arms around the blonde's shoulders. "It's ok, I don't really go for sappy. But I appreciate the sentiment."

"Yeah?" Gail whispered against the other woman's lips.

"Yeah. Now if I'm not mistaken we were about to really get into something before we got distracted by the ornamentation?"

"What would that have been?"

"I have no idea, you'll have to show me." Holly smirked.

Gail pulled back slightly. "So you do want me to top?"

Holly simply rolled her eyes as she pulled the blonde into a fierce kiss. Gail's pedanticism had never evaporated more quickly.

…

An hour or so later, Gail watched as her girlfriend emerged from the bathroom, revelling in the opportunity for Holly to freely walk around naked outside the constraints of their bedroom walls.

It apparently took a few seconds for Holly to notice that Gail had arranged the few rose petals they had not already accidently kicked from the bed over her nipples and centre, and had positioned herself in the classic seductive pose, head propped up on her elbow and other hand on hip, but when she did she let out a low laugh. "You're insane."

"I'm sexy, is what I am." Gail fought to refrain from grinning. "And I forgot to give you your present."

Holly climbed onto the bed, holding out a donut for Gail to bite into. "You don't need to get me a present."

Gail chewed on the donut for a few moments before swallowing. "Well, I did. Remember, I got you chocolates because it's Valentines." She reached behind her, grabbing five bars of chocolate and presenting them to her girlfriend.

Holly laughed. "You got me Caramilk bars?"

"Full disclosure, I had to buy your present from the train station because I only decided to come see you at the last minute. But in a way this is perfect, because Caramilks are your favourite anyway. More than crappy, overpriced heart-shaped chocolates."

"I do love Caramilks." Holly agreed, placing the chocolates on her bedside table. "Best Valentine's ever."

"Mm-hm." Gail nodded. "You should probably fuel up on those chocolates babe, I didn't make myself all pretty with these roses so we could lie here and chat about our amazing present-buying abilities." She gestured to the petals still lying delicately across her breasts.

Holly fell onto her side to lie face to face with the younger woman. "I reckon I have enough fuel in my tank to get me through the next round."

Gail raised a hand to Holly's cheek, leaning in for a kiss. "If you're sure."

Holly smiled against her lips. "Positive."


End file.
